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THE OTHER AMERICANS 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

THE CITIES, THE COUNTRIES, AND ESPE- 
CIALLY THE PEOPLE OF SOUTH AMERICA 



BY 

i 



ARTHUR RUHL 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1908 



LIBRARY of OUNtiRESS 

SEP 23 laoa 

-— i- J tt» - J»ii WMMWM 



Copyright, 1908, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published September, 1908 





AUTHOR'S NOTE 

Chapters I-IX of this book originally appeared as a 

series of articles in "Collier's" under the general title 

" The Other Americans." Chapters X-XIII, with the 

exception of portions of the last two chapters, which 

were printed as separate articles in " Collier's," were 

published in "Scribner's Magazine." The author is 

indebted to the editors of these publications for their 

courtesy in permitting him to use the articles in their 

present form. 

A. R. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Other Americans 1 

II. Caracas and the Venezuelans 8 

III. The Royal Mail and Panama 29 

IV. The West Coasters 48 

V. The Highest Railroad in the World ... 56 

VI. Lima and the Peruvians 71 

VII. Across Lake Titicaca to La Paz 101 

VIII. A Fourth of July in Bolivia 118 

IX. The Other San Francisco 134 

X. Santiago: The Metropolis of the Andes . . 150 

XI. Across the Cordilleras in Winter .... 183 

XII. The City of Good Airs 207 

XIII. Rio and Brazil 254 

XIV. Statistical Appendix . 301 

Index . , 317 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Jockey Club Hipodromo at Buenos Aires on a Sunday 

afternoon Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Cartoons published in South American papers at the time 

of Mr. Root's visit 6 " 

A typical flower-covered home in Caracas 12 * 

Playing tennis in Caracas 12 

Venezuelan schoolboys at the baseball ground 18 ^ 

U. S. quarantine station on the beach at Colon 38 

The white man's burden-carrier bound for Panama ... 38 

Hoisting aboard "the beefsteak of to-morrow" .... 48 
"For nearly two thousand miles the coast is as bare as an 

Arizona desert " 54 / 

"Lighters with freight to give or take" 54 

The little girls of Matucana bearing their gifts from a 

church festival 62 

A typical mountain town in one of the transverse valleys of 

the Peruvian Andes .62 

At the summit of the Oroya Railroad, 15,665 feet above sea 

level 68 

Along the line of the Oroya Railroad in Peru 68 

The monument to the war hero of Peru 78 

ix 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING PAGE 



The central plaza at Lima and the cathedral where may be 

seen the bones of Pizarro 78 

The grandstand at the Jockey Club track in Lima . . . 90 ^ 
Small boys betting on the horses at the Lima race track . . 90 
In the plaza at Lima during the Corpus Christi procession . 90 
Mount Misti looking down from its nineteen thousand feet 

on the roofs of Arequipa 104 ■ 

The Buried Valley in the desert in which the ancient town 

of Arequipa lies 104 

Looking across the central plaza at Arequipa 110 / 

Gateway leading to the cathedral entrance, Arequipa . .110 
President Montes and his escort at the end of their two- 
hundred-mile drive from La Paz to Oruro, across the 

Bolivian Plateau 120 

President Montes and the Archbishop just after turning the 

first shovelful of earth on the new railway 120 

Cavalrymen of -the Bolivian Army on their way from La 

Paz to Oruro . 128 

The roadstead and dry docks at Valparaiso from one of the 

city's hills . . ■ 138 - 

Looking past the statue of Admiral Prat toward the landing 

stage at Valparaiso 138 

Nitrate vats at an "oficina" in the north of Chile .... 156' 

The railroad station at Santiago . .156 

A Corpus Christi procession in the plaza in Santiago . . . 180 y 
Juncal, on the Chilian side at the end of the railroad, at an 

altitude of about 7,800 feet 186 J 

x 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

The natural bridge of Puenta del Inca 186 

On the trail from Portillo 186 

Cranes used in loading and unloading ships at the Buenos 

Aires docks 212 x 

One of the basins in the Buenos Aires docks 212 

In front of the cathedral during Mr. Root's visit to Buenos 

Aires 232 

The Calle Piedad, Buenos Aires 232 

The Avenida de Mayo, Buenos Aires 232 

Cargadores loading coffee at Santos 260 

The new Avenida Central in Rio 260 

The Rua Ouvidor, the principal business street in Rio . . 268 
One corner of the Harbor of Rio 280 

Map showing route taken by author 1 / 



XI 




Map showing route taken by author. 



CHAPTER I 
THE OTHER AMERICANS 

In a novel written by a lady of Buenos Aires and en- 
joying considerable popularity at the present moment 
in the Argentine, the heroine's father, during a visit to 
Rome, obtains an audience with the Pope. He is a 
Norwegian explorer, and when the conversation turns 
to the subject of his family he explains that his wife 
is an "American." 

"Ah, yes?" smiles the Holy Father, "Brazil- 
Mexico— Chile?" 

"No, your Holiness, from the Argentine Republic." 
This — to us — ingenuous use of a word which here at 
home is considered the exclusive property of those liv- 
ing between Maine and California, Canada and the 
Gulf, is common throughout South America. Our 
Minister at Lima, for instance, or La Paz or Santiago, 
is spoken of not as the "American minister," but as 
."el Ministro norfe-americano." A Chilian to whom 
one is being presented for the first time, sympathizing 
with one's struggles with his native tongue, asks: 
"Ingles 6 norfe-americano?" Although he was occa- 
sionally called Chancellor and Premier, and now and 
then "el estadista yanki" — an adjective used as we 

1 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

would use French or German and implying all re- 
spect — this same distinction of latitude was carefully- 
made even for "el Ministro norte-americano," the 
Hon. Elihu Root. The artless hilarity with which the 
average American receives the first intimation of this 
point of view is very typical of our attitude toward 
our neighbors on the south. 

It has been our pleasure to ignore the Other Ameri- 
cans — to know nothing, really, of what they or their 
cities are like, or their ambitions and problems. I ran 
across a friend on the street a day or two after I re- 
turned. "You found there was a place down there, 
did you? That's good. I know it's on the map all 
right, but I never could believe it was real." People 
have assumed that there was such a place — vaguely 
comic and bizarre, inseparably attached, somehow, to 
the words "fevers and revolutions." Now and again 
it appears in our fiction. It is unfortunate — when one 
recalls how many of our ideas of actual life are bor- 
rowed from the play life of engaging books — that 
almost all our South American fiction has dealt with 
the eccentricities of the little republics to the north. 

Argentina is not at all like Venezuela, yet those who 
have not been there are likely to interpret it in terms 
of "The Dictator" and "Soldiers of Fortune." And 
true as "Cabbages and Kings" maybe to the palms and 
sunshine of the Caribbean, it has little more rela- 
tion to life in Buenos Aires than Remington's cowboys 
have to Boston or Chicago. While to peruse one of 

those yarns, humorously illustrated, and inserted from 

2 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

time to time in the polite magazines by way of paprika 
relief, one might suppose that all Latin- America was a 
sort of comic-opera land where gigantic young " Anglo- 
Saxons" with blonde hair and red faces, stalking 
through narrow streets like Gulliver among the Lilli- 
putians, had but to roar " Americano" to make presi- 
dents resign and sentries drop their guns. This sort of 
thing makes one a little weary read in Chile, for in- 
stance, where Americans are not always idolized and the 
gentleman already mentioned may become excessively 
bored when he hears that one is a North American and 
even lift his shoulders deprecatingly as if to say: "Oh, 
what a pity! How unfortunate for you!" It is em- 
barrassing again, in the Argentine, for instance, after 
you have carefully explained to your host that we 
have no imperial designs on South America whatever, 
to have him toss across the table- one of our barber- 
shop papers with a cartoon depicting Uncle Sam as a 
gigantic paterfamilias spanking a lot of little brown 
babies, or the Monroe Doctrine as a hen sitting on a 
batch of South American eggs, while the Yankee rooster 
crows alongside : " They're mine!" It often seemed to 
me while meeting the courtesy of our South American 
neighbors, and observing the almost touching faith 
which the majority of them have in the United States, 
that nowhere more than in our attitude toward them 
do we show that crude bumptiousness which we gen- 
erally assume is to be found only in some absurd 
traveller's tales of the States or caricatures of the for- 
eign stage. 

3 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

If the line which your eye takes looking down the hill 
from Fifth Avenue toward Madison Square were con- 
tinued far enough straight south, it would hit South 
America near the west coast of Peru. Practically all 
of the continent would be east of that line — from there 
to Cape St. Roque is as far as from New York to San 
Francisco; from Cartagena in the Caribbean to Punta 
Arenas in Patagonia is as far as from Key West to the 
North Pole. There are nearly half a million more 
square miles within those extremes than in all of North 
America — and people ask, "What kind of weather do 
they have down there!" On the Fourth of July in 
Bolivia I saw a new railroad opened in a whirling snow- 
storm, and two mornings afterward the thermometer 
on the hotel porch stood within four degrees of zero ; a 
month later in Rio, in more or less the same latitude, 
one wilted in a muggy heat as oppressive as any we 
have in the dog-days here in New York. No more can 
one generalize about the people or their countries. In 
Bahia, on the Brazilian coast, probably not more than 
one man out of ten is white; in Peruvian towns, in a 
corresponding latitude on the west coast, a negro is 
less often seen than in Boston. There is as much dif- 
ference between the lazy lotus Caribbean coast and 
Tierra del Fuego as between Mandalay and the Straits 
of Kamchatka. 

One generalization, however, can be made. It is the 

fundamental difference between the ways in which the 

two continents were, so to speak, born and bred. 

Speaking in generalities, North America was settled by 

4 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

men who came to the new world seeking liberty; South 
America was exploited by adventurers hunting for 
gold. Our colonists cleared land, planted fields, and 
established homes; when the time came to separate 
from the old country they had a stable society, an ade- 
quate political system spontaneously developed, and 
a familiarity with self-government that had been pre- 
paring from the time of Magna Charta. The Spanish 
and Portuguese, following Peninsular traditions, entered 
the new lands primarily to exploit them. The civil- 
ization of the Incas, for instance — to recall the most 
tragic example — was destroyed, and this industrious, 
skilled people — adapted to their environment, capable 
of attaining a level we only can guess at, once 
acquainted with the civilization of Europe — anni- 
hilated. All that they had done perished with them, 
and the new owners of the land had to begin at the 
beginning. 

When Bolivar and San Martin followed the lead of 
Washington and Latin America threw off the yoke of 
Spain, its people had had no training in self-govern- 
ment, nor even in useful industry, and their ideal was 
still the antique and romantic one of the intrepid war- 
rior and successful conqueror. This was the seed. The 
harvest has been reaped all these years in the revolu- 
tions which a sit-tight commercial people such as we 
find it so hard to understand. A continent cannot be 
plowed and resown like a cornfield. Education, im- 
migration, the gradual infusion of saner ideas and 
more stable bloocl — it is a long, discouraging task that 

5 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

earnest Latin Americans of to-day are wrestling with, 
one in which they ought to have, at the least, our 
appreciation and sympathy. 

There they are, these different, almost forgotten 
cities, down below the southern horizon, beneath their 
different stars. The main stream of modern life, stri- 
dent and relentless, flows far away — you think of it 
down there as of something left behind, over the shoul- 
der of the big earth, as it were, as you think of the 
North Star and the Dipper. Echoes of it come each 
morning in the newspapers — vague cables from Europe 
and the States, letters and feuilletons from Paris or 
Madrid; the name of one's banker takes one back to 
New York or London, the locomotive roaring into the 
station is a detached bit of Germany or of home. But 
the grip of the big world's life is not felt, its restless, 
relentless intellectuality, its worship of strength. Peo- 
ple feel rather than think — wear the clothes, employ 
the caterers, read the poetry and shout "Bis! Bis!" 
over the operas of the great world without bothering 
themselves with its problems. 

Side by side are the new and the old, jostling each 
other and blending in a way they never have even in 
our land of contrasts — the old older than our oldest, 
the newest more raw and cruder than our new. Over 
the antique civilization, still drowsing on under the 
blazing tropic sun, buried away in the thin, cold air of 
the Andes, the skirmishers of the new are everywhere 
pushing — engineers, promoters, prospectors, drum- 
mers from Hamburg and Leeds and Manchester, the 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

Yankee medicine man. Under the wilting sunshine of 
Brazil the pink pills of our New England landscape re- 
appear in lazy Portuguese as the Pilulas Rosadas para 
Pessoas Pallidas; down the west coast, on walls against 
which Pizarro's men in armor may have leaned, is 
lifted the hopeful finger of our benevolent Dr. Mun- 
yon. Through windows barred just as they were barred 
in the days when the splendid viceroys used to come 
out from Spain, comes the busy clatter of the American 
sewing machine; in mining camps buried away in the 
Cordilleras the llama drivers, huddled in ponchos about 
their tiny fires, listen to the phonograph quavering 
through the wine-shop's open door out into the cold 
moonlight. 



CHAPTER II 
CARACAS AND THE VENEZUELANS 

W'y seet een cheelly Pearl Estree'f 
Trahnslating letters all ze day, 

Wen o'er ze Caribbean Sea 
I would to home go me ahwayf 

Fair Mercedita waits for me, 
So w'y op here one must estay 

Een cheelly, ogly Pearl Estree'f 
Porquef 

Across ze Caribbean zen! 

To see ahgain ze beeg, red tiles; 
To wahtch ze leetle soldier men 

March op an' down een crooked files. 
Ah, look! Ze moonlight on ze sea! 

(Ees seelver pure — for miles an' miles !)- 
An' Mercedita calls to me 
An' smiles. 

But not! I cahnot go, you see, 

(My Government — / ahm eets foe) — 

I most estay een Pearl Estree' — 
Vm revolucionario ! 



CARACAS AND THE VENEZUELANS 

One mont' to wait — a shor' time — bah! 

One mont' before ze fight estart. 
One mont' — no Mercedita — ah! 
My heart! 
— T. R. Ybarra, " The Spanish-American Export Clerk." 

Caracas is one of the few Latin American capitals 
which seem at first to live up to the traditions of the 
Caribbean and the stories we print in our magazines. 
From the moment one consults steamship agents about 
going to Venezuela, one has a delightful feeling of 
being somehow a conspirator and of becoming en- 
meshed in a vague intrigue in which strange and pict- 
uresque things are about to happen. Before the steam- 
ship man will even sell you a ticket you must get a 
passport and have the Venezuelan Consul countersign 
it, and look you over and satisfy himself that you are 
not a filibuster. All the way down through the Carib- 
bean, with the flying-fish sailing away from the ship's 
bows and the northern stars sinking under the horizon 
and the breath of the trades growing more velvety and 
moist, and the yellow seaweed floating in the blue 
water, mystery and dark innuendo seem to exude from 
the very deck of the little steamship. 

Such tales as the irreverent young purser and the 
mysterious doctor tell, sotto voce, cynical, of graft, plots 
and prisons! The mere gringo feels like a cub reporter 
at the office of a campaign committee. Even the cap- 
tain, who has sailed up and down this path for thirty 
years and seen it all, occasionally drops a sentence, at 
which smiles show, shoulders lift, and the two dark 

9 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

conspirators at the foot of one's table look up quickly 
and rattle off half a dozen phrases in Spanish. All 
day they sit in the smoking-room and conspire, hov- 
ering over their half-emptied glasses, with cigarettes 
made of black tobacco smouldering in their long, lean, 
smoke-stained fingers, whispering by the hour. The 
gossip of the smoking-room, from drummers, coffee 
and tobacco planters, prospectors and engineers: 
"Forty million dollars — that's what Castro's made 
out of it. Sure — he can't last much longer — he's 
got about all he wants. He'll be beatin' it for Paris 
pretty soon where the rest of f em all went. . . . 
Money? Is there! Talk about the Klondike or the 
Transvaal or — why, you can go up the Orinoco in a 
five-thousand-ton steamer and there's your iron right 
on the surface — all you got to do is shovel it off the 
bank — cocoa, copra, rubber. . . . Ah, she was a 
beauty. That's no lie. He saw her an' — well — you 
know the rest. They gave her thirty thousand bolivars 
and the best house they could find in Caracas, and on 
his birthday. . . . Courts? Hell — no! That's where 
you don't go! You'd only lose an' have to pay the 
judges, too. It's cheaper to give 'em their bit before- 
hand and get it settled right. Lawyers? Sure we keep 
a lawyer, but only to tell us what their bally laws are, 
so we don't make trouble for ourselves. . . . Look at 
that flour-mill at La Guayra — wouldn't it make you 
laugh? They can't make flour at a profit in Venezuela 
when they've got to import all their wheat from New 

Orleans. The Government'll just put up that mill to 

10 



CARACAS AND THE VENEZUELANS 

jolly the poor people — they won't have to pay duty 
on flour because the Government monopolies don't 
have to pay import duties, and then they'll import 
flour from New York at four-twenty-five a barrel, and 
sell it to the people as coming from the flour-mill at the 
old price. Talk about graft — gee! These fellows 'ud 
make Philadelphia look like amateurs. ... All you 
got to do is to run out into the Plaza, wave your little 
flag an' yell 'Viva la revolution! 1 Follow you? Sure 
— why not? If they don't fight with you the Govern- 
ment'll make 'em fight for it and won't pay 'em, either. 
With you they're sure of a chance of loot and plenty 
of excitement and fun — sure. Just go out to-morrow 
morning and wave your little flag." . . . "How many 
more years of school?" the captain asked one night of 
the little lad who was returning to Caracas for vaca- 
tion. He was a pretty little fellow with a Conservative 
family name. The present government is Liberal. 
"Five years," said the boy. "Five years school," 
rumbled the skipper, screwing his eyes up in one of his 
satyr-like smiles: "Five years politico, then — fifteen 
years in prison at La Guayra — noV And everybody 
nodded and the schoolboy snapped his black eyes, and 
his uncle, sitting beside him, about to lick his cigarette, 
stopped and licked his lips instead and smiled, too, 
though in a subtler, sadder way. He had a right to. 
He had been in the La Guayra prison once, chained by 
the leg to another man. And he wasn't at all sure that 
after landing in the morning he wouldn't be invited to 

call on the prefect and be clapped into jail again. 

• 11 



THE OTHER AMERICANS, 

When, after a week or so of this, the stern brown 
rampart of the Venezuelan coast looms through the 
morning mist, climbing up and up eight or nine thou- 
sand feet from the fringe of surf at its foot, with a 
theatre-curtain yellow and terra-cotta town nicked 
into the baked hillside, and a little toy fort bristling 
overhead, one feels that whatever happens one is pres- 
ently to be " done ' ' and done interestingly. The languid 
sea wind dies down, the hot breath from the town puffs 
out across the water. While you study the yellow 
gashes in the mountain's tawny flank — cuts the rail- 
road makes in climbing away up over the summit to 
the capital — a launch flying a strange flag comes off 
from shore. Your papers are inspected, you are in- 
spected, then you bake in the vertical sun while the 
scouts go ashore to telephone about you up to Caracas, 
and see if you may be allowed to land. You feel ex- 
actly like a spy or an absconding bank president — al- 
most as though you were an alien approaching the har- 
bor of New York. If they don't like your name or the 
color of your hair, so the irreverent purser drawls out 
of the corner of his mouth, back to the States or to jail 
you go. That was what had happened to one of our 
passengers the last time he had come down — nineteen 
days in prison because he had been seen talking to an 
ex-revolutionist on the wharf in Brooklyn. Landed at 
last, the porter sharks fed with all the money left in his 
clothes, each passenger must sign his name on a slip of 
paper before the little train starts for Caracas. Up it 

climbs, zigzagging across the parched flank of the 

12 



CARACAS AND THE VENEZUELANS 

mountains, till the baking air of the fever port has 
given way to the cooler breath of the upper levels and 
the misty blue floor of the Caribbean stretches out 
miles below, and the donkey trains, gray with trail 
dust, creep past. Another pause — are we held up? 
No, worse luck — only the autograph collector again. 
And then — after days of tropic seas, after passing the 
sentries and the fever-belted shore and dizzily creeping 
over the mountain tops, instead of finding a jungle 
with aborigines living in mud huts and eating jerked 
beef, you roll down into a frivolous little capital, with a 
pretty tiled plaza and monuments and beautiful trees; 
where, of a morning, over the coffee of which they are 
so proud, one may read along with the cable despatches 
snatches of Montmartre poetry and gossip from the 
boulevards, in the cool of the afternoon play tennis 
with engaging young men who talk across the net in 
one's own language as casually as in French or their 
own, and in the evening stroll perhaps with the crowd, 
round the statue of Bolivar with little hooded victorias 
twinkling past like fire-flies, and the band playing 
things out of "La Tosca" and "La Boheme." It seems 
almost as if the little city had had it all arranged to 
make her charm more sure, hidden behind these seas 
and mountains and passports in a sort of Spanish 
coquetry. 

Caracas has nearly a hundred thousand people — 
counting whites, mestizos, negroes, and the rest, and it 
lies in a beautiful valley three thousand feet up in the 
air. This makes its climate delightful in winter, and in 

13 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

summer oppressive only for those who are able to go 
north to the States or abroad. It is built of thick stone 
or plaster walls, with tile roofs and sky-blue courts, 
filled with flowers and vines. Some of the streets are 
paved with asphalt, the others with cobble-stones, and 
there are tramways and electric lights, and the whole 
is spread on the floor of a valley with mountains rising 
up mightily all round, eight or nine thousand feet. 
There is nothing prettier in all South America than the 
sight of it — looking across the valley from some shaded 
balcony in the Paraiso, toward sunset, with the sum- 
mits green and soft with timber, the flanks bare and 
gauntly ribbed, and in the dry season, at least, colored 
curious rusty browns, and below the terra-cotta roofs 
and yellow walls of the town. The clouds hang round 
the summits, and when the rains begin, they almost 
always have a shawl of mist thrown across their shoul- 
ders, and now and then it comes drifting down into the 
very streets of the town, standing out as compact and 
white against the brown backgrounds as so much 
whipped-egg froth. Toward sunset time, the level 
blaze sweeps straight down the valley, throwing the 
ribbed, wrinkled flanks into high lights and black 
shadows, like canvas rocks in the glare of a lime-light. 
The summer was just beginning when I was in Caracas, 
and each afternoon before the sun had swung round 
to the west there was a shower of the quick, warm 
tropical rain. The narrow streets would be rivers in a 
minute, the mountains would disappear, then pres- 
ently the air would dry, the sky resume its limpid blue, 

14 



CARACAS AND THE VENEZUELANS 

and down the length of the valley and across the drip- 
ping city would blaze the searchlight sun. The moun-u 
tains turned to plush, the barren rusty flanks softened 
into browns and greens so velvety that the mere color 
seemed to have a texture, and here and there all over 
it shone little silver lines — sudden cascades pouring 
down the rocks, warm and steady, miles and miles 
away. 

A distinguished gringo once came to Caracas by way 
of Honduras and Central America. He had cut his 
way through swamps, been bitten by mosquitoes and 
fleas, and suffered from fever, and when he saw the 
plaza and the people and the band playing under the 
electric lamps at night, he called Caracas the Paris of 
South America. To me, after seeing Lima and Santiago 
and Buenos Aires and Rio, Caracas seemed scarcely 
more the Paris of South America than Pasadena or 
Colorado Springs are Parises of the States ; but it was 
easy enough to understand the distinguished gringo's 
point of view. The lamps of Paris light its plaza; its 
little victorias rattle through the narrow streets; the 
newsboys call out their papers with long, rippling, 
accented cries that seem an echo of the boulevards; on 
the benches of the plaza, shabby, cynical verse-makers 
scribble decadent rhymes and drowse in the sun. It 
goes through the motions in many little superficial 
ways, and it regards these motions with quite as much 
seriousness as though they were the real thing. They 
read in the morning papers about the new statue of de 
Musset beside the Theatre Francais or a couple of col- 

15 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

umns of impressionistic description of the art of Mile. 
Cleo de Merode — "Our Lady of the Smile and Dance" 
— with as much interest as though the first stood in 
one of their own squares — alongside their statue of 
Washington — and as though the lady could be seen at 
the municipal theatre each night instead of the bio- 
graph. And it is with the conviction and self-absorp- 
tion of the true boulevardier that they write about the 
thunder of traffic in their quiet little streets, the mag- 
nificence of their pretty little villas, and describe the 
carriage parade in the Paraiso as though that little 
macadam street were Hyde Park or the Champs- 
Elysees. 

The Plaza de Bolivar is the centre of the town and 
of Venezuela, and in the centre of the plaza stands the 
equestrian statue of the Liberator, who, after freeing 
all this part of the continent from Spain, was im- 
prisoned by his own people and died broken-hearted, 
in exile, with the words: "I have plowed in the sea." 
Round the square are the Government Buildings, the 
library and sleepy old university, and a cathedral 
whose bell whangs out every quarter-hour, and leaves 
no doubt in the mind of every stranger who tries to 
sleep in the hotel near-by that Venezuela is still domi- 
nated by the Church. Across the end of the square 
tinkle the little toy street-cars, and now and then a 
hooded victoria slips through, the top drawn like a visor 
over the inside, so that all you can see is the tip of a 
chin or bit of white parasol. It is not pleasant for ladies 
to appear on the streets unless they are extremely plain. 

16 



CARACAS AND THE VENEZUELANS 

At the cathedral corner, under a big tree, is the news- 
stand. There are several newspapers and periodicals, 
and some little humorous sheets full of crude little 
drawings. None of the newspapers has exactly free 
speech, and some of them are, as it were, rented from 
time to time by politicians who want to push their 
campaign. The " Constitutional" speaks directly for 
the Government, and is the only one which has the air 
of real stability and dignity. 

Some of the most characteristic traits of the Vene- 
zuelans — their mixture of frivolousness and sentimen- 
tal melancholy, their impressionability, their fondness, 
common to Latin Americans and particularly those of 
the warmer latitudes, for high-flown and flowery de- 
scription — come out in these newspapers. Almost 
always there are sensations de voyage from some trav- 
eller journeying a few miles from home, discussions of 
some fine academic point in literature or speech, 
"communications" in which some fond scribbler en- 
deavors to imprison in classical prose some aspect of 
his native town. A charity bazaar, for instance, is to be 
held at one of the more pretentious villas; it is a nice 
house, the lady is nice, too, the prospect thrills our 
gifted friend Rodriguez, and he seizes his pen and ad- 
dresses "El Constitutional" He begins at the begin- 
ning, thus: "It was a gracious afternoon, one of those 
on which the spirit opens itself to all the varied and 
harmonious accents of the language of beauty — in the 
atmosphere wandered vague aromas, indefinite beau- 
ties beckoned from the horizon, and the day wrapped 

17 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

itself in the seductive melancholy of its last adieu. 
..." Follow, after a few paragraphs, specific details 
— municipal improvements along the Paraiso, the new 
automobiles, the sight of children playing baseball; 
then the lyre is struck again: "The day declines; the 
afternoon loses its pensive attitude of the enamored 
virgin — no longer is there light on the hills nor vague 
glimmers on the mountain tops. Faraway sighs seem 
to come to the ear, airy messengers of chaste amours; 
the shades deepen, innumerable diamonds begin to 
sparkle in the sky. ..." Thus we are brought to the 
house, which is deftly described even to its dimensions 
in metres, then to the interior constructed "with a 
visible eloquence, that quid divinum which gives voice 
to forms, expression to lines, life to details, joy to art, 
and grandeur to the whole." Desirable this is, but 
finer yet "that spiritual culture, that kindness of heart, 
that firmness and character and elevation of soul pos- 
sessed by the villa's mistress, of whom it might truly 
be said that she passes between the flowers of her gar- 
den without touching them with the hem of her gar- 
ments." And so on for two newspaper columns signed 
with the contributor's name. Happy bourn for the 
"littery!" Far from our Park Row, where the im- 
passioned "communication" is tossed into the waste- 
basket, and the copy-reader's shears and blue pencil 
commit continuous murder! 

If you stop to listen in the plaza, at almost any mo- 
ment of the day, you can hear somewhere in the dis- 
tance shrill, boyish voices crying out numbers in Span- 

18 




> 



CARACAS AND THE VENEZUELANS 

ish — "Dos meet — queeientos — cingwenta," — long drawn 
out, melodious, like a phrase of a song. They are the 
lottery-ticket sellers, perennials of the street in almost 
all Latin-American towns. In Caracas, when I was 
there, a new national lottery concession had just been 
granted to a Frenchman. It was "for the good of the 
people," and advertisements represented it as a horn 
of plenty, showering money down into the hands of the 
delighted populace while an army of beaming winners 
marched toward a rising sun with money-bags upon 
their backs. There were drawings twice a week, and 
until the last minute news-venders and beggars and 
little barefoot boys were tramping the sun-baked side- 
walks all over town with strips of these tickets to sell. 
There were sixteen coupons for each number, and one 
could buy them separately for ten cents each or the 
whole number for four bolivars. If that number won a 
prize, the winner received one-sixteenth of it for every 
one of the coupons he held. The company's percent- 
age was three and a third. The numbers which ex- 
perience had proved were lucky were bought up by 
speculators, at whose shops certain favorite tickets 
could always be found. You could even have the 
lucky number reserved for you for the next drawing, 
just as you would go to Tyson's and have a seat re- 
served on the aisle. Some six thousand tickets could 
be sold, and as half-past two, the hour for the draw- 
ing, approached, and there were still hundreds of them 
out, the boys would hurry into the plaza, waving their 
strips and shouting the last call. It was just siesta 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

time, when the plaza lay quiet and almost deserted, 
baking in the midday glare, and from my room I could 
hear them pattering by in their bare feet and wailing, 
like locusts in the sun — ' i La ool-ti-msi o-ra ! " •" Para oy I 
Numero saysmeeZ-dos cimtos-oc/ienta-y-m^eve/ La ool- 
ti-ma o-ra!" The Spanish tongue was made for such 
cries. One really got almost excited and the little raffle 
under the trees in the market became a hazard of 
dignity. 

There were city officials to watch it and the conces- 
sionaire on the outskirts of the crowd twirling his mus- 
tache and looking as though the Bank of England were 
in the balance. The iced-drink peddlars urged their 
frescos helados and there was a vender of little second- 
hand books — a sort of Italian-opera-chorus comedian, 
like the travelling physician in "L'Elisir d'Amore" — 
who would rattle off "I speek all the languages, senores 
— todos los idiomas — I speek ze Ingles va-a-ary good — 
yes, all right — will you have my books — Voulez-vous 
des livres — for ze back-ache, ze stow-mack ache — 0, 
yes — Quiere usted los libros ?" In a big, hollow, woven- 
wire globe were poured wooden balls, like hazel nuts, 
bearing the ticket numbers, in a smaller globe the balls 
bearing the prize numbers and the blanks. These 
globes, hung on axles like churns, were revolved, stopped, 
a ball extracted from each through a sort of spigot by 
incorruptible little boys. They were then handed to 
the clerk, who read the numbers. If number 301 had 
dropped from the big globe and 80 from the little globe, 
the man who owned lottery ticket 301 won eighty boli- 

20 



CARACAS AND THE VENEZUELANS 

vars. He stood about one chance in thirty-three of 
getting this or any other prize. The prize numbers 
were chalked up on a blackboard, each accompanied 
by about the same little buzz of interest that is be- 
stowed on the bidder who gets a bargain at an auction 
at home. The squirrel cages continued their turning. 
The old negro women and the languid mestizos watched 
apathetically, and when the last ball had dropped out 
,as apathetically shuffled away. 

When the cool of the day comes and the sun is going 
down, the shutters are drawn back from the front 
windows, and Mamma and the ninas, dressed up and 
made very beautiful, sit watching the street with their 
faces close to the bars. If one knows them very well 
indeed, one may call, being careful to pay all one's 
attention to Mamma, while Maria or Elvira sits across 
the room, fingering her bracelet or the lace on her sleeve, 
and dropping her great dark eyes and blushing if one 
but so much as looks her way. Or one may stand on 
the sidewalk, and, while folks brush by on the narrow 
flagging — young dandies, perfumed, and whisking 
their little bamboo canes, negro women in pink or sky- 
blue, the powder lying on their dusky cheeks like flour, 
water-carriers, beggars — talk politely through the 
bars. There is always a chance this way that Elvira 
or Maria, in the most casual way imaginable, may let 
her fingers slip through the bars — though, to be sure, 
just a chance, for Mamma's rocking-chair is close by 
and it is too much to hope that she is asleep, even 
though she sits with eyes half closed, a little like an 

21 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

owl. But the stray gringo may only tramp glumly 
past, almost brushing their elbows, staring — for that 
is considered only polite — as frankly as though they 
were pictures or pretty flowers. All may seem lovely 
then. One forgets to wonder whether they could think 
or waltz or bake bread, whether, were they at home, 
they would not be leaning on a pillow in a Harlem flat 
window watching the "L" trains go by — forgets the 
funny little "tidies" and "airbrush" portraits, and the 
funnel of the phonograph dimly visible behind them, 
and with the brilliant tropic moonlight turning the 
shabby old walls to marble and the tinkle of water 
coming from some inner court, every man perforce be- 
comes a Romeo, and each half seen phantom behind 
its barred window a Juliet. 

But what is Maria like — suppose you could drop in 
as if you were at home ? Just for the present I intend to 
evade this delicate and extremely interesting subject, 
though as we stroll on down the street I trust there will 
be no harm in pausing at the big-tree news-stand a 
moment and reading what some wicked, cynical 
scribbler-person says in that droll little La Compana. 
There is a drawing of a young man and a young lady 
under the title Gente Elegante, and this is what he says : 
"You may call her Elena or Julia or Maria — it's all 
the same. In all haunts of the fashionable you'll 
find her — San Bernardino, El Paraiso, etc., are the 
theatres of her operations. She doesn't know how 
many eyes a needle has, but she can tell you the exact 

color of the skirts which la bella Otero puts on when she 

22 



CARACAS AND THE VENEZUELANS 

dances. She doesn't know the Credo, but she never 
misses church, prayer-book in hand like the Queen 
Regent. If you should ask her on what day our inde- 
pendence was declared she wouldn't know what to 
reply, but on the other hand she remembers perfectly 
when the Princess Chimay ran away with a violin 
for baggage. ..." 

This way of shutting Julia or Elena up like a doll for 
the men to promenade past her cage, rolling their 
roving eyes, seems strange to us, but here again let us 
postpone discussion, for the present, of a custom of 
hundreds of years, though in passing we might glance 
over this certainly extraordinary letter addressed to 
the newspaper El Combate. At the head of it are big 
initials which we will call 

X. Y. Z. 

These are the initials of a young man who has made me the 
victim of his immoral and stupid persecution. 

He is a phantom which follows me everywhere, and wearies 
me with his gross attentions. 

To free myself from this troublesome insect I wrote to his 
father to interfere, and liberate me from such a pretentious 
fellow. 

To no avail. 

Then I went to the Prefect of this city with a formal repre- 
sentation, signed and ratified by myself. It was equally useless. 

The Quixote of my window redoubled his attentions, and last 
Saturday I had the misfortune to meet him in going from the 
Plaza Lopez to Las Animas, and to endure the artillery of his 
glances. 

23 



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I am resolved as the result of all this, if he passes my window 
again, to publish the letter which I sent to his father, and a 
copy of the accusation which reposes with the Prefect of Caracas. 

And you may be sure, X. Y. Z., that your name will be printed 
and your description given in a way that you will not forget all 
your life. A. B. C. 

So the men may not always stare successfully, and 
little Maria thinks a bit for herself these days! A little 
time, and will the New Woman have come also to 
Caracas? 

On Sunday evenings the band plays in the Plaza — 
at other times in the week, too, here and over in the 
Paraiso, but Sunday evening is the best. Then every 
one is dressed up and feeling chipper, the little hooded 
victorias go rattling and twinkling by livelier than 
ever, and this cheerful national institution of our south- 
ern neighbors performs before its most engaging 
audience. The statue of Bolivar stands in the centre 
of the Plaza, in an open tiled place where the tiled 
paths come together and cross. At the opposite end 
of the broadest of these promenades, on a sort of dais 
reached by a flight of curved stone steps, the band 
plays, and up and down in front of it, past Bolivar's 
statue and back again, the crowd strolls and chatters 
and smokes cigarettes. That is to say, the men do — 
the young gentlemen back from school in England or 
Switzerland or the States, dressed for the evening, on 
their way to dinner, perhaps at one of the legations, 
regarding the scene with a certain detachment and 

condescension; the young town dandies, with their 

24 



CARACAS AND THE VENEZUELANS 

bamboo sticks and absurdly long, slim, yellow shoes, 
a few Yankee drummers, slapping each other on the 
back with conscious hilarity and talking, half in fun, 
in their horrible Spanish; a German or two, conces- 
sionaires, perhaps, of some great rubber plantation in 
the interior, tall, huge, blond and comfortable, stalking 
side by side, heavy walking sticks under their arms, 
talking art, philosophy and rates of exchange; these, 
and the substratum of mestizos, in their shabby white, 
staring apathetically. And on either side, just at the 
edge of the light and back under the trees, are the 
families, Papa and Mamma and the young ladies, all 
in a row in their best dresses and ribbons and gloves. 
Charming are the little ninas, with their hands in 
stiff, little, white gloves or " mitts" laid primly on their 
laps, and their great shy velvety eyes turning slowly 
this way and that, without any more sign of recognition 
than though those wicked men-creatures promenading 
by were so many pictures of animals in books. There 
was something about them, their dressed-up hats, and 
their shy, little, gloved hands lying stiffly parallel, that 
was exactly like the jeunes filles which French artists 
paint, just such little girls as Mr. Shinn or Mr. Glackens 
might put into a picture of a park. 

They will tell you that Caracas is not what she used 
to be in the old days before the price of coffee went 
down, before the canny Mr. Castro had taxed sugar and 
things as they are taxed now. Everybody was rich 
then, one must believe, and the fountains weren't 

dried up nor the Carvallo gone to seed — when Madame 

25 



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Carrefio was playing and Rojas and Michaelena paint- 
ing, and ,the cable, now cut out, brought real news. 
Every one will be rich again, one must also believe, 
when the Government is better and foreign folks with 
money aren't afraid to invest it, and all those Eldorados 
in the interior are opened up. Venezuela was the only 
one of the Latin-American Republics which wouldn't 
play and send a delegate to the Rio Conference, and, 
as I write, people in Caracas are expecting any day 
to see the present dictator deposed. Yet I dare say 
that life moves on in the little capital in much the 
same way. The tunes from the operas thrill just as 
much whether or not there's a delegate at Rio, the 
senoritas' eyes are as bright and the mountains as 
beautiful. 

It is a perfect place to play with life, cloistered away, 
so near to the real world, and yet so far. The real 
world's manners are here, but none of its problems. 
All things are reduced to a scale so small that big 
general things become individual and personal. People 
who have money have made it easily, those who haven't 
it expect none. There is no striving, strenuous middle- 
class. There are plenty of poets, but they do not hear 
the world's rumble and noise ; they sit on a park bench, 
write verses for albums, or devise epigrams withering 
their rivals and enemies. They hear that their country 
is being ruined, and they write about the eyes of their 
women and compare their mouths to strawberries and 
ripe pomegranates. When the President defies France 

they look up at the brown mountains and say: "We 

26 



CARACAS AND THE VENEZUELANS 

could hold out ten years up there," just as the sleepy 
Creole in the park at La Guayra looks up at the little ' 
fort on the hill and says: " Surely, sefior! With that 
we could blow the French out of the water!" 

Superimposed on this quaint world is the tinier 
world of the sophisticated — the legations, the chosen, 
who have travelled and been educated abroad, the 
exiles of commerce — a toy world more or less typical of 
every South American city. Within it people dress 
for dinner, read the latest magazines, and live super- 
ficially much as they would here or in Europe. They 
drift along placidly, with the gentle raillery of those 
as much at home in the new country as in the old, 
and able, at will, to smile at one from the standpoint 
of the other. In their pretty villas and courts they 
are like people living in conservatories. Strange 
lost sheep blow in now and then — tourists, conces- 
sion-hunters, adventurers, correspondents — they take 
them as they come. There is the feeling that one 
can always go back if one wants to, the real world 
seems like the city during a summer vacation. Its 
absence gives each echo of it a new significance 
and charm. Every " dress suit" and evening gown 
acquires a sort of romantic significance. A lady 
driving along the Paraiso in a hired carriage is as 
much of a personage as a lady in a crested victoria 
driving up Fifth Avenue or through the Park. You 
drop into "La India" after the band concert for a cup 
of Caracas chocolate, with the same emotions that you 
might take supper after the theatre at Sherry's. It 

27 



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is always . before one, changing things and charming 
them — that great battlement of mountain shutting 
out the northern stars, and beyond that the fever- 
filled coast, and beyond that the days and days of 
languid trades and blue sargasso sea. 



28 



CHAPTER III 

THE ROYAL MAIL AND PANAMA 

There are many strange ways of getting about in 
South America, but I doubt if any of them brings a 
more complete sense of contrast than comes with 
walking up the gangplank from the wharf at La Guayra 
to the deck of a Royal Mail. It is almost as hard to 
get out of La Guayra as to get into it; one must call 
on the prefect to demonstrate that one is not an 
escaping regicide, pay one's going-away fees, deposit 
in gold enough to meet quarantine expenses at the 
Isthmus, so that the steamship agent may violate the 
company's order to accept no passengers for Colon; 
and, after pecking at a villainous garlic-greasy luncheon 
on a hotel balcony looking out on the Caribbean, 
skirmishing through smelly streets hardly daring to 
draw a full breath, and awaiting with the gringo's 
panicky dread the bite of the yellow-fever mosquito, 
one has just about forgotten the pretty little capital 
over behind the mountains, Bolivar Plaza, and the 
hooded victorias twinkling through the dark, and is 
ready for comic-opera Latin-America at its wildest. 

Then you step across a bit of planking into the 
British Isles. It is no less than that. Your luggage 

29 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

is brought by a barefoot mestizo, sputtering Spanish 

frantically, and laboring apparently under the obsession 

that you have robbed him or that the steamer is going 

to sail without you, and it is taken by a sandy-haired 

Cockney steward, who says : ' ' Ticket, sir, if you please, 

sir," and "Thank you, sir," whether one gives him half 

a sovereign or tells him that he ought to be hanged. 

You leave behind the desayuno of rolls and cafe con 

leche — hot milk and native coffee, black as ink — and 

approach a breakfast of toast and orange marmalade, 

eggs, cold joints, bloaters, and Yorkshire brawn. The 

decks are lined with steamer chairs whose occupants 

seem as unaware that the steamer has touched at a 

new port, full of sights new and strange which they 

may never see again, as they are of the existence of 

those reclining on either side of them. They do not 

see the theatre-curtain town, nor the wonderful brown 

mountains. They are reading the romances of the 

Colonial Library, just as they were five minutes after 

the ship left Southampton, just as they would be 

if they were sailing east on a P. and 0. to whatever 

queer corner of the Orient. 

At five o'clock, of course, there are tea and biscuits, 

and the Colonial Governor, on his way "out" to his 

new post, tastes, sets down his cup, and forthwith 

summons the head steward: "What is this?" he 

demands, and the steward, wetting his lips and almost 

turning pale, ventures the opinion that it is tea. 

"Tea?" rumbles the Colonial Governor. "Tea?" He 

regards the portly steward as though he were some 

30 



THE ROYAL MAIL AND PANAMA 

eccentric insect. "Now, my good man!" he begins, 
straightening^ up, one hand on the hip ? "I have drunk 
tea for forty yeahs, and in all parts of the world, and I 
know " 

At six-thirty the bugle blows. The Major's big 
bulldog-toed tan boots, which look as though they had 
tramped over many miles of fair green, cease their 
steady pound up and down the deck, the young men 
rap their pipes on the rail, the young women put down 
their Colonial novels. At seven all emerge, dressed 
as though they were dining out at home instead of 
dozing westward through the tepid Caribbean in the 
dregs of the northeast trades. Soda bottles begin to 
pop, the squeaky little orchestra plays "The Lost 
Chord," and airs from the latest Gaiety Theatre success, 
and the Colonial Governor and the Colonel, at the 
captain's table, rumble in the fine, sonorous parlia- 
mentary manner of the Dreadnought's coal consump- 
tion, the native question in Bengal, and the laboring 
men's lack of interest in Nonconformist schemes, as 
though they were reading aloud from The Spectator 
or The Saturday Review. 

It was inconceivably British — that ship. I mean 
that its Briticism was of that incredible sort, which, 
like the complementary kind of Americanism, one 
expects to find only in the caricatures of novels or 
the stage. One could imagine it sailing round the 
world forever and peeping into all the world's strange 
and wonderful ports, and still the steamer chairs would 
line the deck on the opposite side of the ship from 

31 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

which things were to be seen, still the heads would 

be bent complacently over the Colonial novels. There 

were several locomotive drivers on their way to a 

West Coast railroad — fine stalwart chaps, with that 

wonderful combination of sturdiness and stupidity 

which is rarely so well exhibited as in the face of the 

British working man. I happened to speak to one of 

them of "the Canal." "Wat canal is that?" said he. 

I told him that the United States was trying to dig 

one across Panama. "Aouw" — he said, "are they 

buildin' a canal there?" with that peculiar accent of 

the question which seems to imply that probably that 

is exactly what they are not doing. 

Two ladies sat at the captain's right — austere, 

scarcely youthful females, who dressed in black lace 

each night. They might have stepped out of a Du 

Maurier drawing in Punch. Any one who was ever 

housed in that antique and flea-bitten caravansary 

which stands across the plaza from the cathedral at 

Panama — up to last May, at least, triumphantly the 

worst hotel in the worst of all possible worlds — will 

understand how it was almost with grief that a few 

days after we had landed one saw these poor creatures 

there nibbling at its villainous table d'hote. It was 

almost shocking a few days later to catch a glimpse 

of them on the sun-blistered dock at La Boca, gently 

bred apparently, certainly inexperienced, jostled by 

sweating coal-passers and negro porters, picking their 

way, timorously, to a shabby little half-freighter bound 

up the Mexican coast. They could not sail for several 

32 



THE ROYAL MAIL AND PANAMA 

days, and meanwhile they must exist there, with 
donkey engines wrangling all about them and coal- 
dust flying, and bake in one of the hottest ports of the 
world. It was not until we were well down the Peru- 
vian coast that a young American engineer, to whom 
they had appealed one day in Panama, told me what 
it all meant. They were on their way to San Francisco. 
And to compass a journey, which by way of North 
Atlantic liners and Pullman cars might have been 
made in rather less time than a fortnight, they were 
to travel thousands and thousands of miles, touch at 
half the fever-stricken ports on the Western continent, 
and consume, first and last, probably all of two months. 
"But what on earth — " "Well," grinned the young 
engineer, "they said it was the only way. They'd 
understood that transportation was still so crude that 
it wasn't safe for women to try to cross the interior 
of the States!" 

It seemed to me not the least interesting thing about 
the fever-breathing strip of coast between La Guayra 
and Colon that ships like these should be steaming 
along it only a stone's throw, so to speak, off shore. 
I thought of it as we lay at the dock one morning at 
Cartagena, when, with thunder-claps crashing all round 
us like exploding shells and that rain which only the 
tropics know, filling all the world beyond the deck 
awnings in one solid steamy waterfall, the if-you-please- 
sir-thank-you stewards began, promptly at eleven 
o'clock as usual, to patter from chair to chair with 
their vanilla biscuits and little pink ices. And I 

33 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

thought of it every time I looked overside and saw 
the flying-fish spattering away from the bow, and re- 
called that behind that jagged brown shore-line were 
the snow heights and the steamy jungles of the Orinoco 
and Colombia, and not so very far away Indians as 
naked and refreshingly savage as any in the world. 

There are two ways of seeing this northwest corner 
of South America and traversing the several thousand 
miles that take one from the asphalt and cabs of Cara- 
cas to the asphalt and cabs of the capital of Peru. 
By one way you go cross-country, cut your way through 
jungles, ford rivers full of alligators and snakes, shiver 
on mountain passes higher than any in the Rockies, 
get bitten up by all sorts of troublesome insects and 
elected to a geographical society when you get home. 
By the other way, one coasts along effetely in some 
such mailboat as this, and endeavors to content one's 
self by reading "Westward Ho," and consular reports, 
viewing the mouldering dungeons of Cartagena, and 
speculating about the days when pirates rejoiced in 
these waters and the Inquisition roasted people on 
red-hot iron mattresses. If these lines should chance 
to fall beneath the eye of a Colombian, I hope he will 
not think that it was any passionate attachment to 
the society of a steamer-chair which prompted the 
writer to deny himself the more arduous and more 
interesting pilgrimage, nor that this mere coasting 
trip was intended as any affirmation of the notion that 
the Republic of Colombia is not to be taken seriously. 

But we have but one life and there are limits to things. 

34 



THE ROYAL MAIL AND PANAMA 

There are few cities in South America, for instance, 
which the wanderer who strays into these parts would 
rather get a glimpse of than Bogota, the capital of 
Colombia. So few people from the big world ever 
visit it that it is almost like some buried city of Tibet. 
It lies in the interior, ten thousand feet up in the air — - 
so far up that though within five degrees of the equator 
its average temperature is like our spring. Buried 
away, as they are, the people of Bogota have preserved 
more of the Spanish life than their more accessible 
neighbors. It is 'away up here that the sonorous 
tongue of Cervantes and Calderon is spoken most 
perfectly. Bogota is the centre of that interest in 
things literary which is perhaps the most typical 
characteristic of the Colombian when contrasted with 
his neighbors. It was after he had been at Harvard 
that a young Venezuelan told me that Bogota was 
"the Boston of South America," and, to hear South 
Americans describe it, one might almost think that 
Bogota reproduced the days of the precieuses. If 
you ask the name of the best novel written in South 
America, you will generally be told that it is " Maria," 
a story written by a Colombian about Colombia; the 
delegate which the Colombians sent to the conference 
at Rio was one of their favorite poets. Yet to get to 
Bogota, even after one has left the steamer at Sav- 
anilla, takes two weeks' travel up the Magdalena 
River, and by mule-back across the mountains; there 
is no way to get out except by the way one came — 
at the best a whole month gone. 

35 



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It is inaccessibility such as this which has always 
been Colombia's great drawback, and which has done 
much to prevent it from reaching a stage of civilization 
in which the country as a whole could be taken seri- 
ously. Colombia is about ten times as large as New 
York State, and, excepting the Caribbean coast and 
the broad llanos of the eastern part, sloping down to 
the Orinoco and Amazon, the whole land is one tangle 
of valleys walled in by mountains, anywhere from ten 
to twenty thousand feet high. One can look from one 
neighborhood to another, to reach which by the cir- 
cuitous trails would take days. There are practically 
no railroads — communication between the capital and 
the various departments is by horseback, and about 
the vividest idea the outlying people get of the national 
administration is when some representative of it comes 
round to put up the taxes. 

They write and read a great deal of poetry in Bogota, 
but the folks who do it are only a tiny oligarchy, 
superimposed on the country's untrained mass, sloping 
down grade from merely illiterate mestizos to out-and- 
out savages. Only about one-third of the people are 
white. Of the future importance of the country, 
there is, of course, no doubt. Its minerals, in spite 
of the hundreds of millions the Spaniards gathered up, 
have, in the modern mining sense, scarcely been 
scratched. It has coffee and rubber and woods, and 
several million cattle are now ranging in its eastern 
llanos. It will be the nearest country to the Panama 

Canal, and it is only five days from New York. But 

36 



THE ROYAL MAIL AND PANAMA 

even the present chronicler must admit that, in spite 
of its upper class, Colombia, together with Ecuador, 
and, in a lesser sense, Venezuela, is one of those Latin- 
American countries which are, in a modern sense, 
scarcely house-broken. The velvety breath that whis- 
pers through the palm trees of the Caribbean would 
woo the soul away from an iron statue of a Puritan 
Father and make him forget his country, yet one can 
scarcely refrain from smiling at the three little toy 
ships of Colombia's navy, dancing in the sun off Car- 
tagena, or at a land where for a few cents of almost 
any sort of money, you get a handful of bills in change. 
It is hard to be quite serious when you spend three days 
in a little flea-bitten shack on the beach, and the hotel 
proprietor, with a low bow, hands you a bill for $900. 
The disadvantage in coming to the* Isthmus from 
any such respectable and unsuspected port as South- 
ampton or New York, is that one is compelled on 
arriving to go to a Panama hotel, instead of being 
hustled away to quarantine. The long arm of Colonel 
Gorgas and his men, which descends alike on the 
solitary stegomya basking in the rain-barrel, and whole 
shiploads of people embarked at ports a thousand 
miles away, had made La Guayra a suspected port, 
and whoever had come from there must be quaran- 
tined until the six days, during which the fever de- 
velops, were past. Our British acquaintances, there- 
fore, went to Panama, where, until the west coast 
mail-boat sailed, they could enjoy some of the worst of 
Spanish-American cooking and awake of mornings to 

37 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

watch the insectivora crawling up the mosquito cur- 
tains of their beds back to their daytime lairs. We, 
from Venezuela, were bundled into a sea-going hack 
and driven through darkest Colon — which resembles a 
fishing village on Jamaica Bay when the tide is out — 
past the big hospital, to a frame cottage, new, screened, 
and fresh as paint. We thought at the time that we 
were rather roughly used, but one night of freedom in a 
Panama hotel a few days later gave us precisely the 
feelings of the man in the music-hall song who asked if 
they wouldn't put him back in his little cell. 

It was really a delightful place. A certain breeze 
wanders off the Caribbean, so soft and sweet that 
body and spirit fairly dissolve in it as in some faint, 
exquisite music. But it is a furtive breeze, as difficult 
to grasp as the shadow of Ting-a-ling in Peter Pan. It 
particularly likes corners. I mean the outside corners 
of houses which have a porch. It will blow on people 
it knows, and who know the precise angle it likes, and 
make them wonder why any one should think it un- 
comfortably hot in Panama; but if they presume a 
bit and move so much as a hair-breadth to one side, 
it goes out like an electric light and leaves them gasp- 
ing on what might be a tin roof on the very hottest 
dog-day at home. There was one of those corners on 
the porch at Quarantine where you could tilt your 
chair back, put your feet on the porch rail, watch the 
ships sailing into the Caribbean, and shiver agreeably at 
the stories of disease and death the other prisoners told. 

We always talked disease and death. By day, with 

38 




Eh * 

03 



o 





THE ROYAL MAIL AND PANAMA 

pipes alight, clad only in pajamas, with the coral drive 
round our little bay blazing in the sun, it was cheerful 
enough; but toward evening, when the mosquitoes 
began to swarm over from the marshes in clouds, and 
one felt, in spite of what the doctor said, that at least 
one or two of them must be stegomyas, we listened like 
children hearing ghost stories, or shipwrecked sailors 
talking about sharks while clinging to a raft. There 
were only six or eight of us — a black-and-tan family 
bound for Panama, some beach-combers, and the rest 
from the second-class were housed in an adjoining 
cottage — and to the others, quarantines, eating qui- 
nine and driving the fever out of one's carcass was part 
of the day's work. One was a Canal employee; he 
had had the fever in Havana, and had a certificate 
saying that he was immune, but he had sailed from 
Savanilla and had been ordered to Quarantine, with 
the rest. One was a young engineer on his way home 
from the Nicaragua banana country; you were bound 
to have more or less malaria, he said, if you had to 
work in the "bush," but he got a couple of months in 
the north each year, and that seemed to pull him 
through. Only once had he "come near to croaking," 
although that, to be sure, was a pretty close squeak. 
They measured him for his coffin, and in the thoughtful 
way they had in that little native hospital, brought it 
in and set it beside his bed. 

"The good thing is," one of the others said, "you're 
always out of your head. If you get well all right, 

and if you don't, why you go off without knowing it — 

39 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

and that's all right, too." He had just come "out" 
from home — a young Scotchman, scarcely thirty, yet 
with nearly ten years' service behind him in every 
sort of fever-cursed land, from the Gold Coast to the 
Far East. He was a commercial traveller, and he had 
been down the west coast of Africa somewhere when 
the " house" had cabled that the man who covered 
the Caribbean country had died at last, and he must 
go over and take his place. 

"He went off two months ago — at Maracaibo," 
explained the young Scotchman; "he kept at it too 
long." 

This young man, too, had had his measure taken 
after the natives had brought him down several days' 
journey to one of the little ports on the Gold Coast. 
A ship happened to be in port, and, as steamers didn't 
pass that way very often, his baggage was packed up 
and sent aboard, and a cable sent home that his case 
was hopeless. He had had about every disease in the 
lifit of those with creepy names which whisk one off 
in a night, and his face showed that he had not spent 
his life looking out of a club window. Yet he was not 
what is called a hero. He was an agent for a firm of 
whiskey manufacturers. While our baggage was being 
inspected on the wharf, I had noticed two very solid- 
looking leather boxes among his luggage, bearing ini- 
tials not his own. 

"Yes," he said dryly, when I spoke about them 

afterward, "they have seen a good bit of service out 

here. They belonged to the other man." 

40 



THE ROYAL MAIL AND PANAMA 

You run across them everywhere down here, the 
soldiers of that strange legion which is always in active 
service, always on the firing line, yet without a flag 
and without a name. They are through the jungle 
ahead of the railroad and over the passes before the 
engineers. They know the Kaffir and bushwhackers' 
slang names for food, and to sell a bit of cotton cloth 
or a phonograph they are ready to speak more lan- 
guages than a Russian diplomat. They cross deserts 
and ignore pestilence, and the things that amateur 
explorers write volumes about are not mentioned when 
they run across a mail-boat and send back to the 
"house" a report of the day's work. They don't get 
any medals or any cheers or any pensions, and they 
are lucky if they get their name in the paper when the 
time comes for them to " snuff it" in some far-off 
jungle, under any flag in the world but their own. 

Although prisoners, we could walk along the beach 
for about the distance of two city blocks to a certain 
stump beside the water, and if any one passed that, 
the little German doctor would call from the porch, 
and the big Jamaica negro policeman, in khaki and a 
brown helmet, would start toward us, beaming his 
superior and sphinx-like smile. He was a wonderful 
person, very proud of his position, of the distinguished 
personage whom he called "Uncle Som," and he spoke 
the most elegant phrase-book English with a British 
accent that made the most precise of us feel small and 
colloquial. It was superb to hear him ask the negro 
driver of one of the rickety Colon carriages, "Suh — 

41 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

what is yoh tariff?" or to watch him stride in majestic- 
ally from the other house and request, "If I am not 
incommoding you too much, steward, two moh bottles 
of yoh aerated watahs." 

If all the Canal negroes fitted into their places as 
perfectly as did this benign and efficient personage, 
the problem of labor would not be perplexing. I had 
my first glimpse of the Canal negro when I took the 
steamer at La Guayra. She had touched at Trinidad 
and Georgetown, and her steerage decks, fore and aft, 
were packed with Barbadoes negroes. They were, 
husky, strong-looking fellows, like most West Indian 
negroes, black, and smooth as seals. Some were 
beautiful, in their chocolate statue fashion; tall, with 
narrow waists and fine shoulders that showed through 
their torn shirts like chocolate-colored bronze. Mr. 
Rowland Thomas, looking down from the upper deck, 
might have mistaken several for his "Fagan." By day 
they sprawled in the sun like turtles or amused them- 
selves with absurd games, crawling along the rails like 
monkeys or begging for cigarettes from the cabin pas- 
sengers with the peculiar Cockney whine of the negro 
of the British West Indies; at night they danced on 
the deck while two or three pounded on the hatchway 
with sticks, precisely the same sort of tomtom song, I 
dare say, that their relations were beating at the same 
moment in the heart of the Congo jungle. 

It was difficult to associate them with hard and per- 
sistent labor ; they seemed, as much as the palm trees, 

a part of those sleepy isles the steamer had left behind, 

42 



THE ROYAL MAIL AND PANAMA 

with their sunshine and their tobacco and coffee and 
the rank molasses-sugar smells. They were merely 
happy tropical animals. Then one day we sighted the 
Isthmus. Instantly there was a grand scramble. Out 
of tin trunks and paper bundles came duck suits and 
rakish flannels, Panama hats with silk-scarf hatbands, 
barber-pole ties that would have made a Yale sopho- 
more envious — all the conglomeration of British hand- 
me-down clothing which could be* accumulated in such 
a place as the Barbadoes, where British clothing is as 
cheap as it is in London. They had elaborated all the 
little tricks they had picked up from their British 
masters. The Panamas were carefully turned up in 
front and down behind, their ducks were rolled 
up half-way to their knees, flaming silk hand- 
kerchiefs were hanging negligently out of breast- 
pockets. They strolled the deck and leaned on 
their sticks with the air of Broadway chorus gentle- 
men, and the same shameless, slovenly children 
who had begged for tobacco now stared up toward 
the saloon deck with a "who-the-deuce-are-you?" air 
which seemed to be endeavoring to assure us that we 
had never seen them before. It was men like these 
who had come to undertake continuous and exhausting 
labor under conditions which called for pluck and 
fortitude of the first order. I do not know how typical 
this boatload may have been; others, perhaps, had less 
of this hopeless mixture of barbarism and cheap 
sophistication. But when one thought of these black 

men with H. M. S. Impregnable hatbands running up 

43 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

against an Irish Canal foreman, for instance, the labor 
problem opened up a few of its vistas. And it was 
instructive to recall the look of these men two or three 
days later, when we recognized some of them at work 
along the railroad — clothes out of sight now, cocky- 
manners out of sight too, just simple, "cagey" Canal 
negroes, moving so slowly that one wondered how 
they could keep their balance, carrying shovelfuls of 
dirt with the elaborate care of contestants in a slow 
bicycle race. 

To those who know them, the tropics are not ter- 
rible, treacherous though they be; even in naturally 
unhealthy places like Panama, where such work as 
Colonel Gorgas and his men are doing has been done, 
there is scarcely more danger to health than in the 
temperate north. Such work is part of the romance 
of modern science — to destroy terror, stamp out dis- 
ease, defeat what amounted to a hostile army with 
sharpshooters behind every tree, concealed, indeed, in 
every rain-puddle and water-barrel; and to do it, not 
with fighting and smoke and blood, but peacefully, 
silently, with microscopes and drains and mosquito 
screens. Its importance can scarcely be over-estimated. 
For it means, not merely making the Isthmus habi- 
table, but changing the problem of the whole tropics 
and throwing it open to the white man. 

All of the men whom I met on the Isthmus, who had 

work which allowed them to remain indoors away 

from the sun, seemed contented. There was always a 

breeze, they said, and in the shade it was more com- 

44 



THE ROYAL MAIL AND PANAMA 

fortable than it was in summer in the city at home. 
Their lodgings were clean and roomy, and the meals 
at the commissariat restaurants which cost them thirty- 
five cents and strangers fifty cents, were much better 
than those supplied by the average boarding-house in' 
New York. The most satisfied person I met was a 
man who had spent his life in clubs and restaurants 
at home before he took up an executive position in 
one of the departments on the Canal. 

"Food's good, do nothing at night but sleep, and 
it's no hotter than it is in summer in Chicago," he 
said. " Gained twenty pounds, and I whistle every 
morning when I'm taking my bath, and that's some- 
thing I didn't used to be able to do." 

These are the cheering things one hears after seeing 
the Canal and talking with its builders, but few 
Northerners, used to thinking of "the country" as a 
paradise in which one rides and plays golf and gets 
rested and healthy, can journey across the Isthmus 
for the first time without a certain feeling of creepi- 
ness, as though one were entering a darkened sick- 
room sheltering some malignant disease, or an ambush 
that concealed an enemy. Outside it is only a strip 
of jungle land. There is an aisle of tropical vines and 
creepers, pierced by a railroad, wooded hills presently, 
and the view now and then of a sluggish river. The 
very stillness and lethargy of it only make more 
oppressive the weight of tragedy that lies upon it — 
makes it seem more treacherous. Hopes and fortunes 

and thousands of lives have perished here, and there 

45 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

lies the jungle, flat and stupid and freshly green, inno- 
cent as a quicksand. Nature ceases to be our kindly, 
comfortable mother of the North. One shrinks from 
her. You do not throw up your chin and fill your 
lungs; you breathe with a certain dread, as though 
the very air were poisonous. Through the vines you 
can see now and then the engines and dump-cars and 
little cranes left by the French. The hungry vegeta- 
tion, with the relentless sureness of a python swallow- 
ing a rabbit, has all but submerged them. There is 
something horrible and uncanny in the inevitableness 
of this tropical growth, outwardly so fragile and so 
frail. From the tops of rusty smoke-stacks and steam- 
shovels, pale tendrils flutter and swing in the breeze, 
pretty and careless, and they seem like the little waves 
lapping about some dead thing in the water. . . . 

It was sunset time when we rode through the Cu- 
lebra Cut. Work had stopped, and beside the fresh 
gashes they had gnawed in the red clay of the hillside, 
the South Milwaukee steam shovels — almost alive and 
personal they seemed, so wonderfully did they bring 
into the jungle the strength and sure sweep of that 
life of the North — rested for the night. The army of 
workers were returning home. At every station folks 
poured into the train; clerks from the division chiefs' 
offices, young engineers with red clay plastered all over 
their boots and puttees, sweat coming through the 
khaki between their shoulders, and that tired look 
across the eyes that comes to white men who have to 
work and worry in a tropical climate. With them, 

46 



THE ROYAL MAIL AND PANAMA 

returning from marketing or visiting, were their sis- 
ters and wives and young lady school-teachers in 
summer shirtwaists. Everybody seemed to know 
everybody else. It was like a commuter's train going 
out to Jersey at six o'clock. The young engineers 
leaned over the backs of the seats and chatted with the 
school-teachers — some of the wives and sisters brought 
out candy boxes and passed them around. 

" Hello, Mrs. S., how's everything? . . . Well, she 
said . . . Yes, he's going to get a month's vacation and 
run up toUtica for . . . See you at the dance, Friday . . . 
We got the worst of it cleaned off now, and just as 
soon as we burn the brush off, we'll turn stock in here, 
by jiminy, and make a meadow of the whole damn 
jungle. . . . Lucille's just got all the music, an' it's 
simply . . . Can't you come over to-night?" . . . 

It is hard to explain to one who has not first felt the 
creepy spell of a fever neighborhood, the hideous in- 
humanity of the tropical wilderness, just what such 
ordinary talk from these ordinary people meant in 
such a place. It seemed to quiet the noisy shouting 
about graft and plunder, and make it only the red- 
faced wrangling of a day; for the moment it was the 
voice of that young, strong, clean nation, which had 
tackled this job, the sign and promise of the finished 
work. The cool of evening breathed into the car 
windows, ravines sank into shadow, wooded hilltops 
glowed in the sunset; and the treacherous jungle lost 
its treachery and acquired a sweetness and humanity. 

47 



CHAPTER IV 
THE WEST COASTERS 

Sailing out into the Pacific from Panama, the Isthmus 
lies behind, so low and narrow, and understandable, 
that as you watch the jagged backbone of the continent 
disappear into the mists on either horizon, toward 
Honduras and Colombia, it seems almost as though 
you were looking at a relief map, and that if you 
should climb to the top of the mast, for instance, you 
could view both continents from Alaska down to the 
Horn. This is the beginning of the real South Amer- 
ica. And after the third day out, when the ship 
crosses the Line, the rest of the world seems very far 
away. One is aware of stepping into new pastures as 
soon as one boards the steamship at La Boca. 

In the North Atlantic, at least, there is nothing quite 
like these quaint arks that meander down the long 
highway from Panama to Valparaiso. Large as our 
smaller ocean steamships, but with an extraordinary 
amount of deck space, and the staterooms all on deck, 
they carry everything from mail to fresh lettuce, and 
perform the functions of a houseboat, freight steamer, 
village gossip, and market gardener. Your beefsteak 

of to-morrow stands on the hoof gazing up at you 

48 




Hoisting aboard "the beefsteak of to-morrow." 



THE WEST COASTERS 

from the hatchway below, and on the upper deck, be- 
side the shuffle-board, barnyard fowls, housed in a 
double-decker coop, blink reproachfully through the 
slats. The captain is likely to be a British " coaster," 
the officers English or Chilian, and the stewards 
Chilian rotos, who look as though they would be 
charmed to stick a knife through one's ribs for half a 
bottle of pisco. There are no tourists in the North 
Atlantic sense of the word, and the inhabitants of the 
ship, practically all of whom speak Spanish and stumble 
along at least in one or two other languages, are Ger- 
man, Yankee and North-of-England drummers, engi- 
neers bound for railroads and mines; now and then 
some little swarthy army officer, or a native merchant 
travelling with his wife, pallid in her rice powder, 
awed and quite frightened to death when she goes into 
the ship's cabin with all its strange men. 

It is this part of the ocean, between the Isthmus and 
Peru, which suggested to the old Spaniards the name 
Pacific. It is like a mill pond. And these strange 
galleons, with their chicken coops and unhappy steers 
and unbranded inhabitants, mosey along through the 
heat-shimmer as though there were no such thing as 
hurry in the world. An engaging laxity pervades one's 
ship. It was always a mystery to me just how ours 
was navigated. There was a "game on" in the cap- 
tain's room continuously, and no matter at what hour 
one awoke at night, one always seemed to catch the 
chink of chips coming down through the ventilator 
from the bridge. The other officers invariably left the 

49 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

table before the meal was finished so that they could 
appropriate the deck golf-implements and keep them 
until the next gong rang. We rarely, big as we were, 
did more than eight knots, and whenever it was found 
difficult to make our next port before sunset, we would 
slow down and come in the next morning. It is a 
trifle over three thousand miles from Panama down 
the coast to Valparaiso, and the journey ought to be 
made in ten or twelve days. It now takes — although 
the Peruvians are organizing a faster line — anywhere 
from three weeks to a month. It is about fifteen 
hundred miles from Panama to Callao, and our journey, 
with stops at Guayaquil and little ports along the 
coast, consumed a fortnight. 

Slow as they are, express boats cut across the Gulf 
from Panama to Guayaquil, and all that one sees of 
Ecuador is the tropical banks of the Guayas River and 
the walls of Guayaquil. There is always fever here. 
There were twenty-one cases the day we touched, ac- 
cording to "El Grito del Pueblo,"and if "TheCry of the 
People" admitted that many, so the old hands opined, 
there must be at least fifty in the town. We con- 
tented ourselves with surveying it from afar, in which 
way it is very pretty, and listened to tales about all the 
good men who had " snuffed it" there. There are 
some sixty thousand people in Guayaquil, and the 
town is the one doorway from this almost forgotten 
country to the outside world. About one-third of the 
chocolate which the big world uses comes through 

Guayaquil, and, like Colombia, Ecuador has plenty 

50 



THE WEST COASTERS 

of rubber and vegetable ivory and things in the valleys 
and montana land of the interior. But it is as yet the 
least finished of the South American republics, and in 
spite of such interesting places as ancient Quito, where 
the unhappy Inca, Atahualpa, used to eat off gold 
plates, and where to-day you will find plenty of agree- 
able and quite modern people, the population of the 
country is only about 1.5 to the square mile, and what 
with Indians and mestizos, less than one person out of 
every ten is white. 

When the ship sweeps down the Guayas River on 
4he swift Pacific tide and passes the town of Tumbez 
— where that gifted ruffian, Pizarro, landed four hun- 
dred years ago to conquer an empire with one hundred 
and eighty men — green shores are left behind. For 
nearly two thousand miles southward, until close to 
Valparaiso, the coast line is as bare as a desert of 
Arizona. On this western slope of the Andes there is 
no rain* It is always in sight from the steamer unless 
veiled by mists — bare, tawny, with the ramparts of 
the Andes shouldering up and up, level above level, 
pale and amethystine, to the white snow-line. Along 
the foot of this rampart, pasted, so to speak, on sand- 
flats or tacked into the hillside, are little towns, each 
walled away from the other, each the gateway to the 
steamy interior, or to a fertile valley made by the 
melting snows, and set in the midst of a wilderness of 
bare rock, like a green tape tacked on yellow carpet. 
All the Peruvian coast is situated much as Boston and 
New York and Philadelphia would be if the Rocky 

51 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

Mountains rose up from their suburbs, and walled 
them away from the rest of the country. You may 
leave Callao, for instance, at breakfast time, and, 
riding on an ordinary railroad over which freight trains 
pass daily, emerge from the car early in the afternoon, 
breathless and shaky, in the frigid air of Galera Pass, 
one thousand feet higher than Pike's Peak. Some- 
times a little arm of narrow-gauge railway reaches 
over behind the mountains for the green things of the 
other slope, and the sugar and cotton, but there are 
no connections north and south. And so it means a 
good deal when a ship comes in. 

Down past these shore towns — Paita, Pacasmayo, 
Salaverry, and the rest — our lazy galleon dozed in the 
warm sunshine. Sometimes there were a dozen lighters 
full of freight to give or take; sometimes a few score 
casks of rum and one lone passenger carrying his bed 
with him would delay us half a day. Sometimes we 
swung at anchor for hours, while the Peruvian doctors 
with sheaves of thermometers took the temperature of 
every one aboard, and, mustering the passengers in the 
music room, and the crew aft, felt everybody's pulse. 
Except at Callao, there is scarcely a harbor on the 
Pacific north of Valparaiso, and at all these little ports 
along the Colombian and Peruvian coasts ships anchor 
half a mile or so off shore and handle their freight in 
lighters. Away off here, these boxes and bales and 
casks — with their "Kilo 68 — Bordeaux — South Mil- 
waukee — Hamburg — Fragiles — Via Panama — Chicago" 

— become almost flesh and blood. We would lean on 

52 



THE WEST COASTERS 

the rail while they came thumping up out of the hold, 
swung overside with the warning "A-ha-jol" — watch- 
ing by the hour, just as one might sit at a cafe table 
and watch the people go by. International trade be- 
came something intimate, human, and touchable. 
There were no exports or imports ; there were Panama 
hats and sewing machines and milling machinery and 
fresh chocolate and cotton cloth and pineapples. A 
sheaf of polo mallets bound for Quito went off with 
the rest at Guayaquil. Every sling-load had its new 
whisper. The fascination of barter seized everybody. 
We all became Phoenicians. Before the anchor chains 
were taut, shore boats loaded with sweets and fresh 
fruits — " pines" and chirimoyas and Panama hats, and 
candy made of raw cane-sugar and wrapped in banana 
leaves — were bobbing all round us. Five minutes 
after the gangway was let down the ship was a floating 
bazaar. Below, steerage and stokers were buying fruit 
and dulces, and the flat cakes of unleavened, pie-crusty 
bread which the native women of the west-coast 
countries are forever offering you. Along the deck 
they were bargaining over everything, from Panama 
hats, as fine as cloth almost, to unsmokable cigars, and 
romances which would have turned the hair of Mr. 
Anthony Comstock white in a night. Each place had 
its characteristic product. Thus Pisco gives its name 
to a white brandy much affected all along the coast; 
other places had their fruits or the curious sugary 
native chocolate. Guayaquil and Paita are the places 
for Panama hats. 

53 



TEE OTHER AMERICANS 

Buying a hat on one of these boats is an elaborate 
game. One strolls along the deck, languidly, until, 
passing a group of fellow-passengers, each shouting at 
the vender in ferocious pidgin-Spanish, the hat man 
catches one's eye and, observing that one is a person 
of taste, selects a superior specimen from the bottom 
of his box. How much? Setenta, senor. What f 
Heaven and earth! H ombre! And one strolls on 
down the deck and looks over the rail, more languid 
than ever, at the far-off lavender mountains. And 
yet, in the most natural way, half an hour later, he 
runs across you. Promptly out comes a hat, your hat. 
He always remembers, no matter what you call him, 
treasures not the slightest ill-will. Mwee feeno, senor! 
And only thirty-five — just cut in half. One is not in- 
sulting now, only tired and sad. Hei-i-gh-ho! How 
hot the day is! What — a hat? No — no — too much — 
too much. And again you stroll away. Several times 
this is repeated. At last the great bell aft begins its 
warning clangor. The winch-engines draw up their 
chains, the lighters cast off. The prosperous-looking 
Indian dames — very fine with their black hair oiled 
and combed tightly back, their freshly laundered calico 
dresses trailing the deck — descend the gangway, baskets 
empty, dulces and chirimoyas all sold. Their boats, 
affectionately named — Los Tres Hermanos — La Rosa 
Maria — La J oven Victoria — sweep up on the shoulder 
of the swell, and their husbands or sons swing them, 
laughing, into the stern. Breathless appears the hat 

man. Senor! Senor! The hat — here it is — only twenty 

54 




For nearly two thousand miles the coast is as bare as an Arizona desert." 




Lighters with freight to give or take." 



B"" "" & 1 



THE WEST COASTERS 

now. Twenty? I'll give you fifteen. The hat man 
looks as though life were no longer worth living. Still 
— O well — bueno! Here it is. This? No, this isn't 
the hat we were talking about — this coarse-grained 
straw, cleverly enough powdered with sulphur, but 
wretched at that. Ah! Senor is right. So it isn't. 
Here is the hat — no? Good — Adios ! Pleasant voyage, 
senor! Up rattles the gangway, the lighter-men yell 
jokes at the stevedores, the smiling native women, 
their stiff calico waists slipping off their healthy brown 
bosoms, wave a good-by, and their little boys dro 
their oars and put their hands to their ears as the big 
boat whistles and turns seaward to leave them again 
in their isolation. 



55 



CHAPTER V 
THE HIGHEST RAILROAD IN THE WORLD 

One day after a fortnight of such coasting the ship sails 
round a bare, brown island and into a hazy, tawny- 
bluish harbor, full of steamers and masts, with a war- 
ship at anchor here and there, pelicans swarming about 
as thick as blackbirds, and such a prodigious aspect of 
business afloat and ashore in comparison with the toy 
towns of the desert coast that the drowsy pilgrim feels 
he must almost brace up to meet the shock of the real 
world. This is Callao. It is the port of Lima, the 
capital — only nine miles up the valley by railroad or 
trolley — and the gateway into central Peru. More than 
a thousand vessels touch here each year, and through 
it passes about half of the country's trade. Earth- 
quakes and fire have attacked it, the Spaniards bom- 
barded it in '66, fourteen years later the Chilians left 
a little when they got through. But monuments to 
its heroes are taking the place of ruins of the wars, 
thirty thousand people do business in this — as it were 
— " downtown" of ancient Lima, and there is an Eng- 
lish club, from the balcony of which commercial exiles, 
reading the home papers and drinking the home drinks, 

56 



HIGHEST RAILROAD INTHE WORLD 

gaze out to sea and muse sentimentally on the lights 
and songs of London or New York, or — according to 
their temperament — demonstrate to you in what a lot 
of places millions still are waiting for the plucking here 
in Peru. 

The strip of Peru on which Callao and the little coast 
towns lie is fifteen hundred miles long, and extends 
from twenty to eighty miles into the foothills. Here 
are plantations of coffee and sugar and cotton, and 
fertile land only waiting, as our lands in the West 
waited, for irrigation to wake them up. Beyond, for 
three hundred miles or so eastward, is the mountain 
region with its mines and grazing lands, and then the 
rubber country of the montanas sloping down to the 
Amazon. Altogether there is a territory about three 
times as large as France, and to traverse its tangled 
valleys only fourteen hundred miles of railroad. As a 
result, the rubber, for instance, of the eastern slope is 
carried to Iquitos, and thence by steamers down the 
Amazon clear across the continent to the Atlantic. 
Except by mule-back or canoe, there is little direct com- 
munication between the interior districts, and if, as 
Mr. Pepper has interestingly pointed out in one of his 
discussions of the Pan-American railroad, a govern- 
ment official should be transferred from Lima to the 
Department of Loreto in northeastern Peru, only 
about thirteen hundred miles away, he would prefer 
to journey by steamer from Callao to Panama, from 
there to New York, thence to Para at the mouth of the 
Amazon, and from Para by steamer up the Amazon 

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three thousand miles to Iquitos — all in all, a journey 
of nearly nine thousand miles. 

Such grotesque eccentricities of travel suggest what 
it would mean to have the short arms of railway which 
reach into the interior at right angles to the coast, 
connected by an up-and-down system, and it is in the 
performance of that function that the so-called Pan- 
American railroad is really practicable. We shall not, 
as the lyricists of the Congress of 1890 prophesied, 
"be able within ten years to buy a through ticket 
from New York to Buenos Ayres," nor ship freight 
from the States through Central America to the other 
continent; but such isolated little towns as these on 
the Peruvian coast will be looped together one of these 
days, and within reasonable limits passengers and 
freight will be carried north and south where now there 
is nothing but the mule-road and the llama train. The 
railroad runs now from Buenos Ayres fifteen hundred 
miles northward to the border of Bolivia, and on the 
Fourth of July, 1906, at Oruro, American engineers 
turned over the first spadeful of earth for a new sys- 
tem which will eventually connect Peru with the 
Argentine. 

Of all the railroads of this part of the world that from 
Lima up to Oroya is the most extraordinary. It is 
still, after pictures of its bridges have served as a 
stock geography illustration for a generation, probably 
the most impressive piece of railroad engineering in 
the world. Built in the days when Peru was rich 

and reckless, it stands a monument of that time 

58 



HIGHEST RAILROAD INTHE WORLD 

and of that gifted Yankee soldier of fortune, Henry 
Meiggs. 

Meiggs was born in New York State, and after mak- 
ing and losing several fortunes in the East, he took a 
shipload of lumber round the Horn to San Francisco 
during the gold days and sold it for twenty times its 
cost. He built sawmills and made a great deal of 
money, got into difficulties again , and finally fled with 
his family on one of his own schooners, leaving behind 
him a million dollars' worth of debts. He went to 
Chile, built bridges and railroads for the government, 
and again became a millionaire. Then he went to 
Peru and started to build railroads there. Meiggs was 
not an engineer, but he could get engineers to believe 
in him and work for him, and he had energy and ideas 
and the courage of his imagination. After floating 
$29,000,000 in bonds he started the Oroya road in 
1869. He did not live to finish it, but he completed 
the hardest part. He carried it up the eyebrows of 
the Andes from the seacoast to the icy galleries of the 
upper Cordillera, and he paid all his debts. The 
legislature of California removed him from the danger 
of penalties for misconduct, and he died in Lima in 
1877. 

The Oroya road is not only the highest in the world, 
but there is no other which lifts its breathless pas- 
sengers to any such altitude in such an appallingly short 
space of time. The narrow gauge over Marshall's 
Pass in Colorado, for example, climbs to the twelve- 
thousand-foot level, but to get there from sea level 

59 



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one crosses the continent and creeps up the long ascent 
from the Mississippi to the Great Divide. To climb 
as the Oroya climbs, a Hudson River train leaving New 
York would have to ascend, half an hour before it 
reached Albany, a distance one thousand feet greater 
than that from sea level to the summit of Pike's Peak. 

It was at seven o'clock on one of those tawny-hazy 
mornings which come so often in Lima that we started 
up the Rimac Valley for the roof of this Peruvian 
world. It was the second week in June — winter in 
Lima — yet the air was tepid and drowsy-warm, a little 
like our Indian summer at home. For an hour or so 
we wound through a wide irrigated valley, fat and pros- 
perous-looking, with plantations of sugar-cane and cot- 
ton fenced in by mud walls, the roofs of ahacienda show- 
ing now and then over the green. Beyond that the 
bare brown mountains — high enough, it seemed, yet 
really no more than foot-hills — shut in and shouldered 
upward, tier on tier behind each other, yellow and 
terra-cotta and tawny-brown, occasionally flashing 
through a slit in their flanks the snow shoulders of 
peaks miles and miles away to which we were to climb. 
Steadily the train — not unlike the old New York "L" 
trains — creaked and panted upward; downward the 
busy Rimac rattled merrily. 

It had a right to. Descending from the snow line, 

it had watered the llamas and cattle of the bleak 

table-lands; below that, split into slivers of silver and 

scrupulously carried along the highline, it- had fed the 

shelf-like plots of barley and corn of the temperate 

60 



HIGHEST RAILROAD IN THE WORLD 

levels; the slivers had joined, split again lower down, 
watered the orange and lemon trees up among the 
rocks, joined again and made the electricity for Lima's 
trolley-cars and electric lights. And now, at the end 
of its journey, it traversed this eminently agreeable 
valley. Even that.it had made. Without the Rimac 
the old City of Kings could never have existed, the 
cathedrals would never have been built, all the splendid 
viceroys and pretty ladies and the mercurial burghers 
could not have lived. 

The broad valley narrowed, the naked rocks closed 
in, the muggy blanket that lies on Lima and the coast 
thinned and cleared. In the rarer air the nervous 
pantings of the little locomotive echoed between the 
terra-cotta walls. Thirty-five miles from Callao — 
Choisica — twenty-eight .hundred feet above the sea; 
ten miles onward and upward, another station, four 
thousand six hundred now; two miles more, five thou- 
sand now, San Bartolomeo and the first "switchback." 

The. switchback is the characteristic device of the 
road that Meiggs built. When he reached a tight place, 
instead of climbing up an abnormally heavy grade by 
the aid of a cog-wheel, or tunnelling and wriggling 
round circuitously, he simply zigzagged up the face of 
the mountain in the same way that a man makes a 
trail. When there is no room to turn, the track runs 
as far as it can go, then backs out on a "V" and climbs 
upward until a suitable place is reached to reverse on 
another "V" and go forward again. The time that is 
lost in stopping and switching is, of course, very great, 

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but the time and money that were saved in construct- 
ing the track were also great, and the way a train of 
heavy cars fairly walks right up the face of a precipice 
with the help of these "V's" is startling to see. Seven 
such switchbacks lift the train over difficult levels, 
eight spider-web bridges are thrown across the canon, 
and there are more than thirty tunnels. 

Five thousand feet — six — seven thousand five hun- 
dred — over the Wart Water bridge, through the Cuesta 
Blanca, Surco, Challapa, at last the little town of 
Matucana, and half an hour for almuerzo, in the clear 
noon sunshine seventy-seven hundred feet above the 
sea. 

It was fete day at Matucana, and in front of the 
yellow mud church in the tiny plaza a band was play- 
ing and a young man was enthusiastically setting off 
sky-rockets and Roman candles in the sunshine. The 
band was composed of one man and four small boys 
who had to expend so much thought and energy in 
supporting the weight of their horns that nothing was 
left for keeping the time, and the sun showed so daz- 
zlingly in the crystalline air that the fireworks became 
only foolish fizzes and an all but invisible squirt of 
smoke. But the young man knew that the congrega- 
tion of the little mud church had bought them with 
their good money, and that the kind saint in whose 
honor they were being exploded could see the sparks 
and colored balls, even though they were invisible to 
mortal eyes, and so he lit them, one after another, in- 
dustriously and with complete self-forgetfulness, even 

62 




The little girls of Matucana bearing their gifts from a church festival. 




A typical mountain town in one of the transverse valleys of the Peruvian 

Andes. 



HIGHEST RAILROAD IN THE WORLD 

to holding the little sky-rockets in his hand and allow- 
ing the sparks to shower over the bare skin until they 
gathered courage timorously to sail up a few feet and 
dive over into the plaza. And the little band tooted 
bravely on until the last centavo's worth of powder 
had fizzed away, and then, with all the small boys of 
the village escorting it, tramped to a house where the 
Mayor lived, and we left them there, still wrestling 
with the tune as the train panted away. 

The station made one side of the plaza, the little 
church was opposite, and there were houses on the 
other sides. It was like a city plaza and a cathedral 
that hadn't grown up. In every one of these moun- 
tain towns you will find just such a little mud church, 
with its old-world Spanish facade and two or three 
funny old bells. They seem very real and genuine 
somehow, as though simple folks had built them with 
their own hands — as indeed they have, and the same 
faint musty perfume drifts into the thin Andean sun- 
shine as floats from the dim interiors of Cologne and 
Antwerp and Rome. 

On one side of the toy plaza, between the station and 
the church, was a house with a balcony overhanging 
the street, upon which, a moment after the train pulled 
in, appeared two ladies and a very superior silk parasol. 

They leaned on the balcony rail under the silk 
parasol, smiling and talking vivaciously, just as though 
there were always lots to see and lots of people passing, 
and that wasn't the parasol of Matucana, and as though 
they always stood there in just that politely interested 

63 



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i 

way, whether or not the train came in. They seemed 
so specially lovely, buried away here in the upper 
mountains with nothing to look at but that sun-baked 
little plaza and the endless ascending rocks, that it 
seemed as though every man who passed beneath the 
balcony should have a hat with a long white plume on 
it to sweep from his head; and, urged on by this im- 
pulse and held back by one's northern notions of not 
bowing at pretty ladies until they bow first, it was 
extremely hard to know what to do. And one wasn't 
at all cheered afterward to be reminded that in Spanish- 
American countries it is the man who starts the bowing, 
and that undoubtedly the ladies under the parasol 
were hurt and offended, and confirmed in the belief 
that gringos had no manners. 

There was a sort of Christmas tree in the little church, 
and after mass was said and the fireworks exploded, 
all the little ninas, hushed but extremely excited, 
gathered round it, and a pale young woman in black, 
with sad Spanish eyes, distributed presents such as 
little girls get in Matucana, I suppose, when they are 
very religious. When each had a dulce or something 
tightly clasped, the sad young woman arranged them 
in line, two- by two, and they marched across the 
plaza, solemnly, while the pretty ladies looked down 
and smiled from under the only parasol in Matucana. 

Eight thousand feet — nine — ten — over the Quebrada 

Negra, more spider-web bridges, more switchbacks, the 

tunnels of the Little Hell opening at either end of a 

bridge spanning a chasm two thousand feet deep. As 

64 



HIGHEST RAILROAD INTHE WORLD 

the train wound and creaked along the forehead of the 
mountain one could look down on the roofs of villages 
miles below, ant-people and ant-donkey trains, and 
the multitudinous little fields fenced in with thick 
mud walls which made the valley floor a gigantic 
waffle-iron. These are tilled now, but above them, on 
a level with one's eyes, and up and up, seemingly to 
the very top of some of the mountains, were the old 
terraced fields of the Incas, grass-grown now with the 
turf of centuries. They look like innumerable sheep 
paths. By means of these pantry-shelf terraces, the 
patient aborigines used to carry fields right up to the 
summit in the warmer altitudes, and support such a 
population as the country has never come near nourish- 
ing since the conquerors came. 

Those were glad days of socialism and municipal 
ownership. All the land that was not set apart for 
the Emperor or the support of the temples and priest- 
hood was divided up per capita among the people. It 
was still the property of the State, but when a man 
married — and there were no bachelors — he received 
enough land to support himself and his wife. Another 
piece was given him for every child. He was not al- 
lowed to sell or buy, and every year an inventory was 
taken, and each man's possessions added to or de- 
creased according to the size of his family. The old 
terraces are mostly in disuse now, but the fields and 
groves of the lower levels still use some of the old irri- 
gation troughs. They were cut in the rocks by a people 
who knew neither cement nor iron pipe, but they 

65 



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follow the high lines as neatly as though plotted with 
a transit — sometimes, as the cars creep along a canon 
wall half-way to the top, you can see one on the oppo- 
site side, carrying its silver ribbon for miles along the 
face of the yellow rock, like a rain-trough running 
across the blank wall of a skyscraper. 

More spider-web bridges — more switchbacks — and 
ever the air growing clearer and thinner and more cold. 
At Cacray the train was eleven thousand feet above 
Callao; at Chicla, lower switchback, 12,215; at Chicla, 
upper switchback, 12,697. The fields and gardens 
were gone now, the bleak table-land country appeared, 
and people whose hearts or nerves were bothersome 
began to have siroche. The region was not unlike parts 
of Montana and some of the country along the Yellow- 
stone and Shoshone — heightened and exaggerated. 
Vesuvius could have been set on the floor of some of 
the valleys, and its summit would not have reached 
above their snow shoulders. Below crawled burros 
and llama trains carrying silver and copper ore. Along- 
side and above llamas grazed the bleak "flanks after 
their frugal fashion. 

The llama is one of those gifted animals which can 
live on nothing, and by digesting it several times, like 
a camel, live on it for a long time. He has almost 
solved the problem of perpetual motion. He doesn't 
get thirsty when there is no water, and he supplies fuel 
where there is no wood. He will carry exactly one 
hundred pounds with complete indifference and docil- 
ity, and if you put an ounce more on his shaggy back 

66 



HIGHEST RAILROAD INTHE WORLD 

he will lie down, and until the ounce is taken off receive 
with equal indifference his driver's shouts and kicks. 
Yet it is by such primitive vehicles that most of the ore 
from these Andean mines is carried to the smelters. 
At Casapalca, thirteen thousand six hundred feet, was 
the big smelter of this neighborhood, and there in their 
mud-wall corral, were these absurd sheep, lifting their 
ostrich-like necks and viewing the noisy industry with 
their look of timorous disdain. 

Fourteen thousand — the chimneys of Casapalca's 
smelters were pins stuck in the carpet of the valley 
miles below — fifteen thousand — six hundred feet more, 
and the train climbed up and over, and rested on the 
top of the cold, wind-swept Andean roof. All about 
were peaks and blankets of snow. From the station 
you could almost have thrown a stone to the height of 
Mont Blanc. It was only one hundred and thirty-six 
feet short of it. 

But one had little desire to throw stones. One rose 
painstakingly and walked with care. Fifteen thousand 
feet is a good bit of a jump to take between breakfast 
time and luncheon. Some of our companions, muffled 
in ponchos, had been coiled up like seasick passengers 
ever since we passed the belt where oranges grew. 
The only difficulty I noticed was a slight giddiness 
when I rose and started down the aisle. The man 
with me drank a cup of hot tea in the little tambo ad- 
joining the station and went as pale as a sheet. On 
the other hand, he slept like a babe while I stayed 
awake all night.. Those who live at such heights de- 

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velop extraordinary lung capacity and brilliant com- 
plexions, dangerous as it is for them to try to exist 
afterward in the low altitudes. The young girl who 
served coffee and lived up here all the time looked hard 
as nails, and her cheeks were like red russet apples. 

Behind the station Mount Meiggs climbs up another 
two thousand feet, whence — through air so crystalline 
that one might fancy one could walk to the summit in 
half an hour — it looks down on both sides of the divide. 
To the west is the long descent, to the east the chilly 
plateaus and snow valleys of the Andean treasure-land. 
From the Galera tunnel, which carries the train through 
to the other slope, it is thirty-two miles — down-hill 
about three thousand five hundred feet — to Oroya, 
where the railroad used to stop. And from there it is 
eighty-seven more across the Junin pampa — where 
Bolivar whipped the Spaniards in '24 — to Cerro de 
Pasco, where the American mining syndicate is pre- 
paring to get rich. They have spent at least ten 
millions already in merely getting ready, and the fact 
that they have threatened to build another Oroya 
Railroad clear down to the coast suggests the notion 
they have of the quantity in which these riches are to 
come. Some of their men were on the train, down 
from the States on a three years' contract — to live 
and work up there, fourteen thousand feet in the air. 
It seemed like Montana again, on the eastern slope, 
except that instead of steers grazing on the range there 
were llamas, and it was characteristic that as we slid 

down-hill through the gathering twilight I should find 

68 




At the summit of the Oroya Railroad, 15,665 feet above sea level. 




Along the line of the Oroya Railroad in Peru. 



HIGHEST RAILROAD IN THE WORLD 

myself talking with a Yankee drummer who narrated 
with heartfelt fervor the difficulties of getting the 
irresponsible Peruvians to pay for sewing-machines 
on the installment plan. 

The sun had dropped behind the sierras when we 
pulled into Oroya, and it was very cold. In the smoky 
glimmer of the station-lamps husky white men with 
northern faces, in corduroys and sweaters, grinned a 
welcome. They led the way across the street to the 
gloomy stone barracks that did for a hotel. The air 
of its rooms, innocent of heat as most lodging places, 
even in the coldest Andes, are wont to be, pierced the 
very marrow of bones softened by the lotus air of the 
coast. 

But there was a cheerful dining-room with an ample 
dinner and a cheerful bar-room with every kind of 
bottle known to the Anglo-Saxon race ranged along its 
walls, and a little hot stove, in front of which bronzed 
gentlemen of versatile experience took their turns at 
standing and telling tall tales of treasure, of the white 
Indians of the upper Orinoco, how we could, or couldn't, 
dig the Panama Canal. Outside the dusk deepened. 
The burro and llama trains, from who knows what 
buried valley of the Cordillera, had shed their burdens, 
and their cholo and Indian drivers, muffled in neck- 
scarfs and ponchos, were herding them into corrals in 
the frosty twilight. Light began to glimmer from the 
low doors of the mud-houses; through one of them, 
where a handful of dusky heads showed in the glow of 
a lamp, squeaked a phonograph, and presently a tenor 

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voice singing I Pagliacci sobbed out into the night. It 
took one back to the capital, down that wonderful 
slope, from glacier to bleak plateau, plateau to sunny 
village, village to orange orchard, orchard to steamy 
plantation, the city and the sea; down, down, valley 
yawning at the foot of valley — a hundred miles, and 
always down. The moon came up over the jagged 
heights that shut in Oroya. It shone so big and near 
and dazzling bright that one felt one could almost 
climb the rocks and touch it. The stars hung in the 
crystalline sky like arc lamps. It was, indeed, the roof 
of the world. 



70 



CHAPTER VI 
LIMA AND THE PERUVIANS 

At the end of the driveway known as the Ninth of 
December, where, late every Thursday and Sunday 
afternoon, the gente decente of Lima may be seen at 
their best, stands the monument to Colonel Francisco 
Bolognesi, who was killed at the battle of Arica during, 
the great war with the Chilians nearly thirty years 
ago. Bolognesi and his two thousand Peruvians were 
surrounded by twice their number of the enemy, and 
when called upon to surrender, refused. u Al ultimo 
cartucho!" — "to the last cartridge" — said Bolognesi. 
So the Chilians attacked, bombarding the town from 
their squadron in the harbor, storming the morro and 
the height above the town, occupied by Bolognesi and 
his men. The Peruvians fought as their leader had 
promised, until their ammunition was exhausted; then 
they fought hand to hand. Just what happened at 
the end none of the reports of the battle which I have 
read take the trouble to say, but what the Peruvian 
of this generation believes, what the man in the street 
or the steamship smoke-room will tell you, is that the 
Peruvians not only fought to the last cartridge but 

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died to the last man; that Bolognesi's lieutenant, 
Ugarte, rather than surrender, spurred his horse off 
the cliff that dropped sheer seven hundred feet 'to the 
sea, while Bolognesi himself died where he stood, and 
fell with his arms wrapped about the flag. 

He has become a legendary hero now — this Latin- 
Peruvian, and his lieutenant, — like that Teuton-Peru- 
vian, Grau, who performed such prodigies at sea in 
the same war, and whose statue stands in the square 
at Callao, nine miles away. On a bookshop wall in 
Arequipa, far up in the interior, I saw a poster picturing 
Ugarte spurring his horse off the edge of the cliff. In 
the fire-engine house at Mollendo — a village of stucco 
and corrugated iron stuck on a bare hillside of the 
southern coast, with a thunderous surf forever pound- 
ing at its feet — I saw a wandering troupe of players one 
night. It was warm and crowded in the little engine- 
house, the lamps smoked, and that "aplaudido tenor 
comico nacional, Sanchez Osorio," did not seem so 
funny to us, perhaps, as he did to the inhabitants of 
Mollendo, who have nothing much to do from month 
to month but watch the freighters anchored off shore, 
kill fleas, and now and then bury another victim of 
bubonic plague in the wind-swept little cemetery on 
the top of the hill. So we left before the performance 
was over and went to bed, but just as we were getting 
drowsy, lulled by the steady boom of the surf — which 
is something tremendous in these parts — there was a 
great hubbub in the engine-house across the street, and 
much stamping and cheers. It kept up for a long time, 

72 



LIMA AND THE PERUVIANS 

with quiet intervals in which we could hear a tenor 
voice ringing out long reverberating words. They 
were cheering that "notable spectacle" with which the 
programme had promised the entertainment should 
end, "a, monologue in original verse entitled 'A Soldier 
of Peru, or the Martyrs of Arica,' dedicado a la gloriosa 
memoria de los heroes Bolognesi y Alfonso Ugarte." 

When the war between Chili and Peru began, Peru 
was the dominant power of the west coast. She was 
wealthy, her army and navy were supposed to be the 
strongest, her capital city had all the prestige which 
attached to the ancient seat of the Inquisition, the 
home of the viceroys, the aristocracy which preserved 
best the blood and traditions of the conquerors. When 
the war ended, she was beaten and broken. Her ships 
were captured or sunk, her righting men gone; her 
seaports, even to their lighthouses, razed, her proud 
old capital sacked by the invaders. The enemy's 
horses had trampled over its parks, the enemy's soldiers 
had bunked in its ancient library, and — so they will 
tell you in Lima — lit their cigarrillos with the illumi- 
nated pages of precious old books. It was merely an- 
other of those examples of the old succumbing to the 
new; vivacity and grace — and, perhaps, the accom- 
panying incompetence — crushed by fresh strength and 
preparedness. 

The Chilians were proud enough in those days to be 
called the Yankees of South America. They ended the 
war masters of the west coast. They pushed their 
coast-line many hundred miles farther north, they 

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took away from Bolivia her Pacific outlet and locked 
her up inland; they took away from Peru what they 
went to war to get — her incredibly rich province of 
Tarapaca. Two more of Peru's provinces, Tacna and 
Arica, Chile was to hold for ten years, at the end of 
which time the people of the provinces themselves 
were to determine by a vote to which country they 
were to belong. When the ten years were ended in 
1893, Peru, still weak from the war, and further dis- 
tressed at the time by revolution, had no power to 
force the holding of this plebiscite. Chile did nothing 
— the people of the disputed provinces still being 
strongly Peruvian — to bring it about. Nothing has 
yet been done, probably nothing ever will be. No- 
body outside of Peru believes that Chile will ever give 
up the captured territory unless forced to do so. There 
are no indications at present that Peru could furnish 
such power. From the nitrate provinces which Chile 
took from Peru she has already collected, in export 
duties alone, some three hundred million dollars; with 
what was once Peru's property she supports her strong 
army and navy and pays almost all her expenses; 
nitrate has been such an easy road to wealth that Chile 
has hardly bothered with anything else. 

"In twenty-five years more," so your Peruvian host 
will talk, as you stand there near Bolognesi's statue, 
with the carriage chains jangling by — "in twenty-five 
years they will take out forty million tons more of 
saltpetre — three billion dollars Chilian — a billion and 
a half of export duties. No nation" — and as he grinds 

74 



LIMA AND THE PERUVIANS 

the steel into the wound, in a sort of pride of pain, he 
throws in with the comparatively little lost through a 
treaty unfulfilled, all that won by the Chilians, openly, 
by strength of arms — "I tell you no nation in the his- 
tory of the world ever paid such tribute ! The greatest 
war indemnity recorded by history was that paid by 
France to Germany after the Franco-Prussian War — 
five billion francs. The tribute exacted by Chile 
amounts to five billion six hundred and seventy-five 
million francs, of which our part was four billion four 
hundred and forty million. And the Frenchmen paid 
one hundred and thirty-one francs per head. We paid 
— each man, woman, and child — fourteen hundred and 
eighty francs. Their indemnity meant only two years' 
public expenses; ours meant public expenses for one 
hundred and forty-eight years!" 

I do not mean to say that the Chilians were wicked 
wolves in this war, nor that Peru was not guilty 
of some pretty shifty business in her anti-Chilian over- 
tures to Bolivia; I am only undertaking to suggest 
the Peruvian point of view. Out of defeat and bitter- 
ness such as this the new Peru is springing, the 
industrial Peru of sugar and silver, cotton and copper. 
It is the new Peru which set up a gold standard, 
which is drilling oil wells, making roads, studying 
subsoil irrigation, building faster steamships, bringing 
millions of dollars of American capital to its Andean 
mines. The statisticians will tell you that the value 
of Peru's exports has increased in the past eight 
years from less than fourteen millions of dollars to 

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more than twenty-eight. And that seems a big and 
important thing. But your Limehan host will tell you, 
as you watch the victorias roll by, that five years 
ago there was scarcely one such carriage and pair in 
town. 

"Fifty-four, senor" says he impressively, " fifty-four 
in the last two years. You can see the lading-bills in 
the custom-house." That, when you think of what it 
implies, seems important, too. And as we are con- 
cerned here not so much with statistics as with 
people, and how they feel and think, I have told 
of the statue of Bolognesi because, in a way, it is 
Peru's very heart turned inside out and set up there 
in bronze and stone. 

In most countries in such a public place, where 
carriages parade and pretty ladies come to take the 
air and show their dresses, you find the statue of some 
conquering hero, sword aloft, his war horse rearing, 
front hoofs pawing the air — the image of martial 
strength and victory. The statue which stands on the 
top of this column is that of a beaten soldier; his body 
is swaying and about to fall, his right hand grips a 
useless revolver, his left clasps the battle flag — every 
line suggests hopelessness and defeat. It is he who 
looks down on the procession as it rolls round and 
round, on the big Chilian horses stepping high, the 
young men ogling the ninas as they drive by. The 
band sounds in the distance. The children, with their 
backs to the driver, in half stockings and big black 
patent-leather hats, sit straight and solemn, the pale 

76 



LIMA AND THE PERUVIANS 

Peruvian ladies look languidly at space out of their 
black, sad eyes. And this little parade of the Limenans 
comes to mean rather more than some others for they, 
too, have had their Sedan and siege of Paris; they, 
too, have lost an Alsace and Lorraine. 

Of all the South American capitals Lima best pre- 
serves in touchable wood and stone, in the very air of 
it, the old Spain transplanted by the conquerors. 
Pizarro himself founded it, in 1535, and started then 
walls which stand to-day. Through these streets the 
invaders dragged their precious falconets, and Spanish 
cavaliers in complete mail, clanked impressively gen- 
erations before Hudson sailed past the island which 
is now New York. When a horse was almost as strange 
a sight in the New World as a dinotherium, Pizarro's 
cavalry galloped out toward the enemy with their war 
bells jangling on their metal breastplates; priests of 
the Church swung their censers and recited the exsurge 
Domine as the battle opened, nearly a century before 
the Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock. 

Dust had gathered on the parchment records of 
Lima's library, its university was old, before the little 
red school-house of the States had begun. Its history 
had been written by its own citizens, its clever young 
men. were satirizing their townspeople, and writing 
verses after the French when Chicago was merely a 
prairie swamp. And not all of the earthquakes which 
have shaken it, nor the countless revolutions and wars, 
have been able to destroy its ancient outlines and 
antique flavor. The very atmosphere, which blankets 

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the town for a good part of the year in a tawny, sunlit 
haze — something more than air and less than mist — 
seems designed to shut in and preserve the past. 

One may still see, overhanging the street, carved 
balconies which the colonists patterned after their 
native Andalusia ; houses with inner courts big enough 
for palaces ; great, spike-studded front doors almost as 
formidable as the gates of a city. Electric cars whir 
past mouldering old monastery walls within which life 
has scarcely shown a ripple of change in three cen- 
turies. In the Cathedral the sacristan draws back the 
curtains from a glass case containing the very bones 
of Pizarro. On the corner of the plaza, to the left 
from the cathedral steps, is the passageway from which 
the conspirators emerged on their way to kill him. 
One, as the legend goes, stepped out of the way of a 
mud puddle, and the other ordered him back, thinking 
that one afraid of water was not ready to wade through 
blood. To the right is the Government Palace, in 
which they surprised the old conqueror, slaughtered 
his guard, and ran him through. As he fell he traced 
in his own blood a cross on the stone floor, kissed it, 
and died. They knew how in those days. 

The great war which left the country flat and help- 
less just as the boom was developing in the Argentine, 
its inaccessibility, and the comparative lack of oppor- 
tunity which it offered to immigrants, have kept it 
back. A few Chinese and Japanese have crossed the 
Pacific, there are British and German and occasionally 
American business men, but Peru has received nothing 

78 




- 



J 



se 



^ § 



LIMA AND THE PERUVIANS 

like the stream of colonists which has made Brazil's 
Little Germany, Italianized parts of the Argentine, 
made many of Chile's nitrate fields like British colonies. 

Sprouting out of the old Ciudad de los Reyes, never- 
theless, is the new city. Its young men ride paper 
chases, its young women play tennis and — after wear- 
ing the manto to church in the morning — go to the 
races in the afternoon in European dresses and hats. 
Its business men have their Chamber of Commerce, 
which applies the energy Latin- Americans used to ex- 
pend on apostrophes to liberty to the agitation of com- 
mercial treaties, customs reforms, and internal im- 
provements. Trolley-cars hum across the startled 
landscape from Callao to Lima or down to the bathing 
beach at Chorillos. On the outskirts of town a modern 
army trained by French officers — sturdy, broad-faced 
Indians or cholos, reminding one of Japanese, in white 
service uniforms — tramp through the eternal dust. 
In the library, young Peruvians are reading reference 
books as they would in a city library at home. The 
University of San Marcos was established by Charles V 
himself, in 1551, but the new Lima is here also, and 
the afternoon I was there she and two or three of her 
sister co-eds sat in a roomful of dark-eyed young men, 
puckering her brows and taking notes on the history 
lecture with the rest. 

In the university's new medical school, that same 
day, I saw young Peruvians, under the guidance of 
one of their countrymen who had been graduated 
from Cornell, carving up the remains of some poor, 

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half-starved cholos, for the good of mankind. Many 
of them come down from the interior — these half- 
nourished brown men — and what with drink or un- 
cleanness, or the change from the thin, cold air of the 
Cordillera, die off like sheep. I saw dozens of them 
that same afternoon in the great "Dos de Mayo" hos- 
pital, wrapped in red blankets, lying side by side down 
the long wards. It was rather ghastly and queerly pa- 
thetic; as though the white man's science and sanitation 
were somehow prolonging a kind of suffering which one 
forgets existed before the white man came. Of course 
the real significance was not at all this : rather that in a 
country where sanitation was once almost unknown, 
and even now more die of tuberculosis than of the 
tropical diseases which northerners dread, there should 
be a place where poor creatures like these might be 
decently taken care of. 

Lima's best hotel compares, favorably with those in 
European cities of similar size. At the club round 
the corner one meets men as well-informed, more 
polite, and much more acquainted with modern 
languages than the usual club crowd at home, and finds 
the world's papers, from the New York Herald to La 
Vie Illustree, the London Times to Caras y Caretas of 
Buenos Aires. At the newspaper office a little farther 
down the street shock-haired cholos rap the keys of 
linotype machines with the blase accuracy of Park 
Row. There is pelota and Rugby football, polo and 
gymkana races, opera, generally, in the winter, little 
zarzuela plays almost all the time. And when you 

80 



LIMA AND THE PERUVIANS 

buy your ticket you pay in neat silver sol pieces the 
size and value of our fifty-cent piece, or with a gold 
piece of the same fineness and value as the English 
pound. The mere sight and feel of these delicately 
modelled coins seems to imply stability and inherent 
orderliness. 

Through all the old channels, in fact, begins to flow 
the stream of modern utilitarian life which such com- 
munities must accept to-day if they would go forward 
instead of back. As you see the Limenans of a 
golden-hazy Sunday, trooping to church, strolling about 
the Zoo or under the stately ficus trees of the Botanical 
Garden, it is hard to believe that only twelve years ago, 
when Pierola entered the capital with his revolutionists, 
three thousand people were killed in three days in these 
same drowsy streets. 

It begins — this busy Lima Sunday — with breakfast 
in one's room; a cloying-sweet chirimoya, perhaps, 
coffee and rolls, a little square of the tasteless goat's 
cheese so common in Peru, and El Comercio or La 
Prensa propped up against the coffee-pot. Through 
the open shutters comes the dull reverberation of the 
Cathedral bell and the sound of feet shuffling by in 
the narrow street ; from the interior court, upon which 
all the hotel rooms open, the faint, intermittent click, 
if you listen for it, of other people's desayuno spoons. 

Here, as at home, the Sunday paper is ambitious — 
even interspersed with half-tones: Queen Margherita 
of Italy at a charity bazar, a "momento critico en un 
match de football" in England; the principals in that 

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recent British romance, young Lord Clifford of Chud- 
leigh and "la sefiorita Evelina Victoria Carrington," 
leading lady of the company acting at the " elegante 
Teatro de Aldwych de Londres." 

The noble lord (for with a taste debauched by Sun- 
day supplements we skip for the moment politics and 
the article on the Triple Alliance and the extinction of 
the bubonic plague, and after glancing over the cable 
despatches turn to this echo of the wood-pulp romances 
of home) had seen Miss Carrington as she shone across 
the footlights of his native town of Dublin, where "los 
Irlandeses in their strident, whistling speech, knew him 
as the Catch of the Season" He was only twenty-one, 
many times a millionaire — with what a far-off, queer, 
Olympian glitter must he- shine in the eyes of Mercedita 
of Lima, shut away from his "world by oceans and con- 
tinents and ages of traditions — "the .scion of a family 
which had worn the ermine of nobility for nearly five 
centuries." 

Be assured, however, gentle Mercedita, "not all the 
noise in the feminine world is made by the female 
politician. Her evolution has not, we are glad to say, 
quite destroyed the romance of life." The young lord 
promptly fell in love, only to be compelled to tear him- 
self away from the Irish capital and go to Egypt with 
his regiment. "Was he really aware of the danger 
awaiting his heart from the eyes of Evelina? He alone 
could tell." None thought of it, it seems, when he 
returned, presently, older and with the "aureola del 
vencedor" about his brow. But the "Diva de Aldwych 

82 



LIMA AND THE PERUVIANS 

granted him an interview, en automovil-^-ih&t machine 
of the future which already has made history in the 
realm of romance. In this rapid vehicle Lord Clifford 
and la senorita Evelina reached an understanding, and 
four days later abbreviated the marriage formalities 
with a speed scarcely to be expected of a lord." 

"The Aldwych Theatre had one star less, el peerage 
una esplendida lady mas." 

Glancing down a column headed "Sport" and 
through a communication on the Dreyfus case signed 
"Historicas," one meets, with pleasant surprise, the 
name "Lady Clare" at the head of what appears to 
be a short special article, modestly signed at the bot- 
tom, "A. Tennyson." It is one of those paraphrases 
with which thrifty Latin- American editors frequently 
fill space: 

"Era el tiempo en que florecen los lirios y en que las 
nubes se agitan en lo mas elevado de los aires. Lord 
Ronald, al regresar de una caceria, regalo a su prima 
Lady Clare una cierva blanca como una azucena." 

This is what becomes of: 

It was the time when lilies blow 
And clouds are highest in the air 
Lord Ronald brought a lily-white doe 
To give his cousin Lady Clare. 

Lima's newspapers reflect that modernity which, 
loosely speaking, increases as one travels southward. 
They are more like newspapers. There is less fine 
writing. You may remember our Caracas friend who 

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wrote about a garden party and told of the sunset, 
and a breeze like vague whispers of chaste amours, 
and the day wrapping itself in the melancholy of its 
last adieux. 

In Lima, a similar correspondent, would rather show 
his knowledge of the world by criticising his native 
town. Thus in a communication on municipal art we 
find him cruelly comparing Lima, to Munich. 

"Like Munich," he observes icily, "Lima is quite 
impossible. At every step we commit offenses against 
nature and good taste; trim trees in capricious shapes, 
put quadrilaterals of Moorish motive on top of 
Greek facades, raise arches behind Ionic columns, so 
that the former are split by perpendicular lines, and 
both effects sacrificed. Some of our perspectives are 
positively cruel. We live in narrow rectilinear cor- 
ridors, monotonous, unadorned; there is not an exam- 
ple of industrial art to entertain the casual guest — not 
a single newspaper kiosk, not a martial fountain, nor 
a polychromatic column for advertisements, a memorial 
plaza, a fire-alarm, an automatic scales — none of these 
mere obviousnesses, so to speak, of prosaic modern 
city life. 

"Posts — miles of lowering posts with their bare 
copper wires! Without Europeanizing -ourselves, as 
Madame de Stael put it, can wc not transform this 
absurd old Ciudad de los Reyes, devote ourselves a 
little more to its embellishment?" Even the most 
squalid quarters of other capitals have a sort of charm, 
"wrapped as they are in history and tradition, grimy 

84 



LIMA AND THE PERUVIANS 

with ancient crimes and revolutions. Whitechapel, 
the Marche du Temple, the Barrio de la Vina in Cadiz, 
the Barceloneta of Barcelona, the famous Boca of 
Buenos Aires. . . . We, however, lack all this. Our 
squalid quarters are merely squalid. We have no 
given type, nothing genuine in form or color here in 
our world of bricabraqueria " 

Respectfully one salutes the coiner of that phrase. 
It really wonderfully expresses it — bricabraqueria — not 
the ancient city, nor, perhaps, the Lima that exists 
behind the great studded doors, but that which strikes 
the casual stranger's eye; a diminutive sprightliness 
of the streets, a certain vivacity and social grace which 
contrasts with the sentimental melancholy of ' the 
Caribbean, Bolivian stolidity and Chilian hardness and 
hustle. 

Up and down every street, meanwhile, the faithful 
womenfolk, their black mantos veiling all but their 
pale oval faces and their dark sad eyes, flock to mass. 
All must wear the manto in church — not the demurest 
bonnet whatsoever is permitted there. The lines of 
caste are all but lost in this black covering, and side by 
side they troop into the cool portals, mistress and 
brown cholo maid, merged in a sombre penitential 
democracy. 

More than with us at home, even, the business of 
getting sins forgiven is put upon the shoulders of 
women. With them in the dim cathedral kneel a few 
old men and children, perhaps some majestic states- 
man or retired warrior, setting an example to the 

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populace. But the young men and sinners roll up and 
down in open victorias, lolling back with legs crossed, 
smoking cigarettes, or stand along the curb twirling 
their limber canes and watching the caterers and 
carriages drive by. 

In almost all South American cities women spend, in 
the almost continuous services of the Church, the time 
which, with us, they utilize or waste in literary clubs, 
bridge, settlement work, and what not. One can 
scarcely walk a block in Lima without passing some 
musty old church — its alter quaintly lit, perhaps, with 
incandescent lamps — without inhaling the cool, musty 
smell of damp stone and incense, and seeing black- 
robed, penitent women kneeling in prayer. 

In the heart of the city, spreading over several 
squares, is the monastery of the Franciscan monks, 
scarcely changed from what it must have been three 
centuries ago. One of them took us through the 
portions open to visitors after we had duly tapped on 
the spike-studded door and whispered our mission 
through the wicket — a brown, bright-eyed little fellow, 
lean as a hound, at once keen and quite ingenuous. 
There were arched ceilings, painted blue and speckled 
with stars to represent the heavens, fine old carved 
choir-stalls, dungeon-passages walled up with rusty 
bars such as a child might build for his ogre's castle. 
Even the little monk could not tell their history, only 
shrug his shoulders and glide on. It was pretty to 
see him handle some of the old vestments — cloth of 
gold which Queen Isabella of Spain herself had pre- 

86 



LIMA AND THE PERUVIANS 

sented to the order. The cloth on which the gold was 
laid had been many times renewed, but the gold threads 
themselves were as beautiful as they ever had been. 
The modern vestments looked brazen and almost 
tawdry beside them. There was one crypt-like place 
in which a flickering oil lamp burned. Why was it 
always burning there? Ah — many, many years ago, 
senores, robbers broke into the monastery. And as 
they came in, intent on stealing and murder, the 
images of the saints left their altars and shrines and 
came down here to hide. And when the wicked men 
saw them — these images of wood and stone, moving 
and alive — they were filled with pity and with fear, 
and dropped their booty and fled. So the monastery 
was saved from profanation, senores, and the place was 
made a shrine. 

Of the many Church fiestas, of which so much is 
made in the South American cities, none is more im- 
pressively medieval than that of Corpus Christi, which 
fell on one of the days I spent in Lima. The great 
sun-baked cathedral makes one side of the plaza, the 
other three are flanked by arcades with open shops be- 
hind them and balconies overhead. From all these 
balconies and open windows the crowd hung, waiting 
for the procession, chattering and laughing, while in 
the cathedral the organ thundered, the violins sang 
above it shrilly, and the incense rolled up in clouds. 

Soldiers cleared the street and lined up along the 
curb. Flowers were scattered over the muddy pave- 
ment, and handfuls of rose petals. "All the pretty 

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beatas will be out. Come," said my host, "we can see 
better from the balcony of the club." So indeed they 
were, gathering in the street behind the banners of 
their various guilds — pale virgins with their lamps. All 
wore mantos or mantillas, and each carried a long taper. 
Some of these tapers had glass shades and looked like 
" fairy-lamps " on sticks. Here and there the older 
women — fat and dumpy as is the way of their blood — 
blinked behind their lamps drolly, like wise old owls. 
On the club balcony several modern young ladies, ac- 
companying fathers or brothers, looked down good- 
humoredly, and, as it seemed, with what might be 
the vague condescension of those in modern dresses 
toward those in mantos and black; from the room 
behind came the sprightly click of billiard balls. 

The procession emerged from the cathedral and 
moved slowly round the square. In the midst of it, 
under a velvet canopy, was a feeble old man bearing 
the Host. Many little acolytes in scarlet and white 
swung censers in front of and behind him. The beatas 
followed demurely, their candles flickering wanly in 
the daylight; the soldiers, executing a sort of goose- 
step, fell in behind, tramping down the flowers. Across 
the plaza, as it slowly proceeded, came the jangling of 
bells, and little clouds of incense floated away. Sev- 
eral times the procession paused, for the canopy was 
heavy and some of the priests were very old. As it 
neared and passed under the balcony, the young ladies 
pointed out their friends. "There's Rosita," said one. 
"Isn't she pretty to-day?" "They are all pretty," 



LIMA AND THE PERUVIANS 

sighed our host. "We must make some calls this 
afternoon. All the Manuelas will be at home to- 
day." The. procession disappeared into the church. 
The crowd dwindled away, the pale beatas trooped 
homeward two by two, carrying their burnt-out lamps 
— just about as the young British and American clerks 
were leaving their tennis-courts, and the paper-chasers 
trotting back to town. 

On summer Sundays there is a bull-fight. In winter, 
that is to say, in the months of our northern summer, 
the Jockey Club races are the event of the afternoon, 
and the "higgy-liffy" of the capital gathers about the 
little gingerbread grandstand of the "Hipodromo 
de Santa Beatriz." It is an engaging place, quiet and 
toylike; young Martinez and Montero try hard and 
wickedly to pocket, ride off, and otherwise embarrass 
the occasional Master Michaels or Keefe or O'Brien 
who has ventured here from the States — " second 
cousin, senor, of the jockey who has win the grand race 
at your Shipshead last year, no?" — and the horses, 
likely to be of Chilian breed, are called lovely rolling 
names like Quintora and Oro, Ventarron and Amor. 

After the shirt-sleeves and sweat, peanuts and uproar 
of our betting rings, it was interesting to see Lima's 
little "mutual" betting kiosks with the sign "Le 
Sport" set over them, and the bettors lining up before 
the windows as quietly and decorously as they would 
buy tickets at the theatre. With this system — in use 
at all South American tracks — a certain percentage of 
the money laid down goes, of course, to the club, while 

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the successful bettors divide the winnings in proportion 
to their number. If the favorite is backed too heavily, 
they may win nothing at all. If you want to bet five 
soles you go to one window, and if you want to bet 
ten soles you go to another window, and the clerk 
within gives a ticket in return and rings up your pur- 
chase, so to speak, on an automatic machine. The 
most interesting result to me was the sight of the 
small-boy capitalists — who would have been stepped 
on if they had ventured into the betting-ring mael- 
strom at home or fished therefrom and ruthlessly 
spanked — marching up to the one-sol window and lay- 
ing down their little silver pieces with a great puckering 
of eyebrows and much savoir faire. 

As much as the mouldering old walls of Lima they 
reminded the outsider that he was far from home — 
these nice little boys, in knickerbockers and broad 
clean collars and big Sunday-school ties, slapping down 
their silver pieces and chirping excitedly to the clerk 
the number of their favorite — "Once!" — u Doce!" — 
"Cuatro!" — and after the running crowding round the 
pay-window just as boys at home might crowd round 
a waffle-wagon or hokey-pokey ice-cream cart. One 
was taken away again when the horses swung into the 
stretch turn, and "Amor" (could Love be vanquished 
by Gold or a Hurricane?) showed in the lead, and the 
audience rippled out toward him — instead of the 
nervous yelps of home — a mellifluous u A-mor! A-mor! 
Ade-el-Zem-t e A-mor ! ' ' 

After the races comes the carriage parade, and then 

90 



LIMA AND THE PERUVIANS 

the Sunday evening dinner, which is quite as much a 
family affair as it is with us at home. 

They are splendid places for such meetings, these 
spacious old houses, with their inner courts open to 
the sky — for it never really rains in Lima — and the 
rooms opening on the inner balcony. In their con- 
tinuous summer — although the Humboldt current keeps 
this coast much cooler than corresponding latitudes 
on the east coast — these balconies often become merely 
a continuation of the rooms behind them. They are 
spread with rugs and set with chairs, and very inviting 
they look — especially about twilight time — as you are 
walking home from the races, for instance, and catch, 
through the outer doorway and the dusk of the 
court, glimpses of figures and the warm glow of lamp- 
light. 

Now would be just the time, were one at home, to 
look in for a minute, and watch gifted Mary or lovely 
Jane prepare a cup of tea. But this is Latin- America, 
where a man bestows, not receives, kindnesses; where 
the mildest thing, it is feared he would propose, if 
left for an instant unguarded, would be an immediate 
elopement; where Mercedita and Olimpia may not re- 
ceive us unless Mamma — or the whole family — is there. 

To us, with our North American ideas, it would 
seem that the relations between young people might 
be much more pleasant and beneficial if a girl were not 
taught to assume that every man is an erotic hyena, 
and men were not encouraged to presume that young 
ladies have no protection except that which resides in 

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duennas and iron bars — but ages of tradition cannot be 
changed in a day. 

Here in Lima families have a regular "at home" 
day, generally an afternoon, when all may be seen. 
Outside of these meetings, dances, and glimpses now 
and then at more or less public gatherings, the young 
people see little of one another. The embarrassment 
of a young American engineer or clerk plumped into 
such an environment from, for example, the boy-and- 
girl good-fellowship of a suburban town may be im- 
agined. If he calls on a young woman more than 
twice he is likely to be asked to define his intentions. 
They told me of one young gringo, thus surprised after 
what he had assumed to be merely a polite call, who 
replied, "They are perfectly honorable, sir, but remote." 

For such men, indeed, Latin- American society, after 
the first novelty is over, is a bit melancholy. In more 
ways than one they do not speak the same language. 
They cannot manage the flowery compliments, which 
are the mere preliminaries of talk, and they are angered 
and perplexed when they hear young men speak in a 
way that would be considered impertinent at home. 
Either shocked or bored, the exiles find it slow sledding. 

"Habla usted espanol t No, muy poco, very little, 
only for business, the railroad, the hotel. Do they 
like to dance? Oh, yes — they love to dance. And 
can they dance the cake-walk — dancing the cakky-wak 
seems to be considered one of the most absorbing of 
North American activities — and South Americans ask 
about it with the same roguish smile of intimate under- 

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LIMA AND THE PERUVIANS 

standing that the American assumes when he ventures 
a scintillating "Ha estado zested en Nueva York?" No, 
they are sorry they do not dance the cake-walk, though 
they have seen it danced — did the young ladies go to 
the theatre last night? No, they did not go last night, 
but they hope to go to-morrow night. The new singer 
is muy bonita, very simpatica — no? Yes, but is she as 
good as the one who was here last month ? Well, yes, 
but not so good as the one who was here the month 
before." 

"You can't even talk about the weather here in 
Lima," one young man confided grimly, "because it 
never rains!" 

Here and there new ways are creeping in. While 1 
was talking with a Lima gentleman in his library one 
afternoon two of his young daughters went skipping 
downstairs with tennis rackets. They were on their 
way to a club court, whither they went apparently 
unattended. This, for Lima, was indeed unusual, yet 
there — as with us, where it has done so much — outdoor 
sport is beginning to open occasional gaps in the dusty 
old social walls. Young women of this class are quite 
as well, if not better, educated than their brothers, 
except when the latter have had the advantage of 
schooling in England or the States. This the girls 
rarely receive. They go to the convent schools or are 
tutored at home. 

For the common, or garden variety of girl, however, 
learning is viewed as a dangerous thing. Tradition is 
against it; the frivolous Latin- American young man is 

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made more uncomfortable even than his Northern 
neighbor by signs of undue cerebration in the opposite 
sex; even to a gringo the vision of a " brainy" senorita 
is appalling. They learn to play the piano, to sing a 
little, to draw and do fancy work; the rest, studied 
from antique text-books would amount, so I was told 
by an American school-teacher, to about that necessary 
to pass the sixth grammar grade at home. 

These things are better ordered in Chile and the 
Argentine, where there has been much importation of 
teachers and methods from Europe and the States, 
and elementary education in such cities as Buenos 
Ayres and Santiago is often much like that in our public 
schools. There are German, English, and American 
schools in Callao and Lima, but outside influences of 
this sort find it hard to spread far, especially if avow- 
edly Protestant. A missionary, who had started a 
school in which modern English text-books and meth- 
ods were used as far as practicable, told me that one 
priest launched a series of sermons directly against her 
work, warning his congregation that she was possessed 
of a terrible microbe, which, communicated from her, 
would attack the brain of its victim and destroy her 
will power. It even went so far, she said, that in 
passing her on the narrow Lima sidewalks timorous 
young women would squeeze close to the wall and 
put their handkerchiefs to their faces as if to shut 
out some malignant disease. 

Tradition and social prestige are on the side of the 
convent schools, and it is easy to understand why the 

94 



LIMA AND THE PERUVIANS 

young folks themselves would rather go there. One 
American missionary school which I visited was in 
an old tumble-down house, ill-lighted and damp. It 
was the best they could get for the time being, and the 
young woman at the head of it certainly deserved great 
credit; but one couldn't deny, even for patriotism's 
sake, the charm of the big convent school a few squares 
away. 

The old fortress-like walls covered a good part of a 
city block. Two ladies, evidently just having paid a 
visit to their children, came out of the cool interior as 
I entered, stepped into a victoria, opened their parasols, 
and drove away. Within, everything was spacious 
and clean and cool — a fine old Spanish building, with 
massive arches, trees and flowers growing in the broad 
patio. Once as we were passing through an upper 
corridor the Mother Superior beckoned to a sort of 
window in the walls, and we looked down. It was a 
chapel, the candles blazing about the altar, on the 
floor below rows of ninas veiled in white and bowed in 
prayer. Behind us little girls were playing in the 
inner court; the afternoon sunshine brightened the 
chapel windows. The Mother Superior, a brisk, terse, 
Irish woman, brought here, so I was told, that the 
convent, also, might have an English-speaking north- 
erner at its head, led the way through recitation and 
music rooms to a laboratory, finally, with a few phys- 
ical science instruments. "Not much," — she smiled 
good-humoredly,— "but good enough for girls." 

If the intellectual interests of these young ladies 

95 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

are neither broad nor piercingly acute they have, more 
than most of our own would, the charms of their 
deficiencies. Amongst our reasoning maidens of the 
north there is nothing like their childlike delight 
in little things, their frank unselfconscious coquetry. 
Big brother, tiptoeing into the doorway, brings his 
hands together with a tremendous clap, and grown-up 
Lolita and Elena and Luisa jump and scatter like 
startled quail, laughing, affecting prodigious alarm, 
not frightened, yet, as it were, loving to pretend to be. 
Even Mamma looks up with a quick, girlish smile and 
half puts her hands to her ears. 

In the blood of all, young and old, is an instinct for 
chivalrous romance, fine words of courtesy and compli- 
ment, inherited from the days when folks signed letters 
"beso las manos y los pies de Ud. — I kiss your hands 
and feet" — even when writing challenges to their bitter- 
est enemies. Sometimes, as in business letters, this 
trait seems merely amusing. In more human relation- 
ships, however, it has often a very tender and gracious 
charm. Two old ladies, old friends, chanced to meet 
one day at the house of an acquaintance of mine. 
They were at an age when to speak of their infirmities 
was natural, yet, instead of settling down for a dis- 
cussion of the symptoms of rheumatism, each began, 
in highly figurative language, to minimize her friend's 
age and accent her own. "I am but a withered leaf," 
one would say, for instance; "a brown and wrinkled 
leaf blown hither and thither by the wind. ..." "Ah, 
no, my dear friend, you are a flower that brings fra- 

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LIMA AND THE PERUVIANS 

grance and refreshment wherever you go. . . ." "If I 
am a flower I'm only a faded old flower, no longer any 
good to anybody." "Ah, my dear friend, even the 
faded rose retains its perfume. ..." 

These South American maidens flirt — if so brutal 
a word must be used for such a guileless effervescence 
of animal spirits — as birds sing or little children 
clap their hands. There was a Venezuelan lady, 
a buxom and vivacious matron, who, after tremend- 
ous struggles with her English, finally managed to 
pronounce to one of us the magic word "Huyler's." 
Through goodness knows what circuitous channels it 
had reached her across the Caribbean. If he would 
but send her a box when he got home, she managed to 
explain, between ripples of laughter at the funny- 
sounding English words and the delightfulness of the 
idea, she would think of him — and both hands were 
pressed passionately to her heart — with every single 
piece she ate! The guest promptly answered, of 
course, not only that the box should be sent, but that 
he didn't need candy or anything else to remember her 
until the crack of doom. And so on, and on, with 
killing glances and much laughter — her two children 
watching her gravely the while, her husband at her 
side highly entertained and very proud of his wife's 
repartee. Meanwhile her unmarried sisters were being 
thrown into ecstasy because another man promised to 
send each of them, by way of recuerdos, some picture 
post-cards from Panama. 

In Lima there was another such evening, a Sunday 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

evening family dinner, when big and little, the married 
sister, and the fiances of the two older girls gathered 
about the table in the feudal South American way. 
How the men were made to blush and look at their 
plates as the younger girls, more nimble at these 
things, laughed at their attempts to speak English! 
"What do you think of heem, senor! All he can say 
is ' Good-morning — how dough you do? Ye-e-s? 
Dough-you-like-Lima? ' He has estudied all hees life 
an' he can't spik a whole sentence of English!" And 
away they went in ripples of laughter and quick 
Spanish phrases — and one doesn't know how musical 
a tongue it is until one has heard it spoken by young 
girls, or, best of all, the little children. And, then 
with what tremendous drollery the men got back at 
their tormentors by plaguing them about their suitors, 
especially little Lolita, who, it was solemnly insisted, 
could get no one but a Chinaman — Un Chino, un Chino! 
0, Lolita, Lolita! 

The dining-room opened on the patio, and after 
dinner we stood by the rail here, under the stars, or 
from the Moorish balcony in front watched the people 
passing in the narrow street. Then the young folks 
played and sang, one of the fiances and the youngest 
sister, flourishing handkerchiefs, danced an odd native 
dance, while the other, who had travelled much 
abroad, illustrated our "cakky-wak," and told of the 
wonders of our musical comedies, where "the most 
beautiful women they have, in the loveliest gowns — 
each one of them, herself, a famous beauty, is it not 

98 



LIMA AND THE PERUVIANS 

true, senor?" — appear, and the ninas, who had never 
seen anything but the South American chorus ladies, 
which are like our grand opera chorus, only more so, 
listened open-eyed, looking every now and then to 
their guests for confirmation. 

There is indeed quite another side to the Latin- 
American family life than the barred windows and 
medievalism of which we hear so much. The mingling 
of gallantry and domesticity, this cloistered coquetry 
— benign parents, arch senoritas, roguish big brothers 
and sons-in-law, all chattering frivolously and good- 
humdredly together, is very charming. It is a fine 
thing to think about life and to reason out a scheme of 
living. But it is also something not to have made it 
such a heavy duty that one is afraid to smile thought- 
lessly lest something should fall. 

After you have said your good-night, once at the 
door upstairs and again in the street, to those laughing 
down a "Buenas noches!" from the balcony, there is 
still time to look in at the theatre and see the last tanda 
of the night. Three or four of these one-act plays, 
generally farces, are put on, and one may buy a ticket 
for each, or reserve a seat for the whole evening. Most 
of them come from Spain — tiny classics some are, that 
have been played for years in little zarzuela theatres all 
over the southern continent. Nowadays many are 
adaptations from English. They were giving an 
abridged Geisha lasting about an hour while I was in 
Lima, but by far the most popular piece was that 
" comico-lirico-bailable farce" entitled 'The Eden 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

Club.'" The Eden Club was adorned with such dis- 
paraging mottoes as "Marry and Be Sorry," "Matri- 
mony is the tomb of liberty," "Matrimony is a blind 
alley with no way out." It was a place where hus- 
bands could gather and do all the things that they 
could not do at home. The piece began with the initia- 
tion of a new member to entertain whom various 
dances were given much after the manner of our musical 
comedy songs which describe the girls of various coun- 
tries. Each national dance was received with appropri- 
ate interest and applause, but when the orchestra swung 
into the grand old tune of " Hiawatha" and La Yanki 
appeared dancing the "cakky-wak," the house from 
parquet to gallery — where the little cholo boys were 
baking against the roof at five cents a head — went wild. 
When the curtain goes down on the last tanda, 
Lima's busy Sunday is over. There are no blazing 
restaurants, as in Buenos Aires. As the audience 
shuffles home through the silent street, the great spike- 
studded doors are bolted and the balconies dark. 
No one is abroad except the little policemen, or some 
lone inspector in French uniform riding his cavalry 
horse in slow majesty up the deserted street. The 
drowsy hotel watchman climbs out of his blanket 
and takes one's key from the rack. The rest of the 
night is silence, broken only at the hours when the 
policeman's whistle wails at the street crossing below, 
and is answered down block after block until it dies 
in the distance, like the call of sentinels watching over 
a sleeping army. 

100 



CHAPTER VII 
ACROSS LAKE TITICACA TO LA PAZ 

There are moments during the gringo's introduction 
to Bolivia when he would almost give his letter of 
credit to anyone who would make him warm. His 
friends tell him of mines rich beyond the dreams of 
Pizarro, of railroads that are going to do what the 
transcontinental lines did for the States, of the sturdi- 
ness and backbone of this mountain people. It's a 
great country, his friends say, they're a wonderful 
little people, and the next boom that strikes South 
America is going to strike here, and all he can do is to 
nod sympathetically, wrap his arms tighter about his 
chest, and dream that in some far-off forgotten clime 
people are still smiling, still comfortable, and warm. 

Bolivia — I speak now of practically all except that 
eastern part which slopes down to the tropical forests 
of the Amazon and Paraguay head-waters — occupies 
somewhat the same relative position to South America 
that a roof-garden on the top of the Metropolitan Life 
Building would occupy to New York. It is the highest 
inhabited country in the Western Hemisphere, the 
South American Thibet. On its northern border, at 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

an altitude of 12,500 feet, one steams across a lake 
seventeen times as large as the Lake of Geneva in 
Switzerland — the highest body of water which has 
steam navigation — and from here southward along 
the plateau bearing the cities of La Paz, Oruru, and 
Potosi to the Argentine line, in a crystalline, piercing 
atmosphere that dries and burns the unaccustomed 
skin, people are living and working at heights which, 
at home, are supposed to be reserved for mountain 
climbers, condors, and eccentric sheep. 

In the States, the ride up Pike's Peak is generally 
considered something of a strain. Pike's Peak is 
14,500 feet high. I met a young American mining 
engineer at Oruru who told me that the entrance to 
his shaft was between 17,000 and 18,000 feet, and that 
the places where he and his men had been working 
were so near the sky that the angels' feet stuck 
through now and then. 

Inasmuch as the country lies between 10° and 23° 
South Latitude — about as far from the equator as the 
West Indies — the Bolivians assume that they are 
living in the tropics and need no stoves. Inasmuch 
as the entire western slope of the Andes and most of 
this table-land is as bare of timber as the interior of a 
marble quarry, and coal costs wholesale in La Paz 
some $30 gold a ton, it would make little difference 
whether they assumed this or not. The result is that, 
except for cooking, such a thing as a premeditated fire 
is almost unknown. People live and work, even give 
dinners and go to the theatre, in a temperature which 

102 



ACROSS LAKE TITICACA TO LA PAZ 

would make outdoor New York in October weather 
seem like a conservatory. The Indians and half- 
breeds, which make up from eighty to ninety per cent. 
of the population, wrap themselves in picturesque 
homespun ponchos, and are quite serene. The whites 
endure, and, when they can't, sit in their overcoats. 
If the somewhat academic suggestion might be vent- 
ured that Bolivia can scarcely accomplish anything in 
literature or art unless a coal-mine is discovered, for 
the fundamental reason that no matter how many 
fine ideas a man has he cannot write or paint unless 
his fingers are warm, the Bolivians could reply, I sup- 
pose, that as soon as the railroad is finished into the 
forest country there will be wood for everybody; that 
there are other things to worry about while roads are 
so bad, and tin and silver running what they are a 
ton, and that meanwhile possibly enough lyricism is 
already being emitted by neighbors to the east and 
west and on the Caribbean. 

Like all places at high altitudes, there is a great 
difference between the spot where the sun's rays 
directly shine and that in the shadow. At a place 
called Uyuni — where I was colder for longer than at 
any other time in my life — on the way down to Chili 
from La Paz the mercury on the porch of the little 
railroad hotel stood at 4° above zero Fahrenheit at 
seven o'clock in the morning. The water in the pitchers 
was frozen into stone, and there was absolutely no fire 
anywhere in the hotel except in the kitchen. There 
was no heat in the cars, and the sun — warm enough 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

outside — happened to shine directly behind the train. 
It thus remained, thanks to the insidious curves of the 
track, until nearly noon, while the lone Chilian drum- 
mer and I, the sole occupants of the car, marched up 
and down the aisle, singing, whistling, and waving our 
arms, in a state of acute suffering. After such a morn- 
ing, up here on the table-land country, it will be balmy 
spring at noon, and actually hot toward the middle of 
the afternoon. I asked an American railroad engineer, 
who was sleeping with his construction gang out on 
the pampa in a tent on nights like these, if one got used 
to it after a while. "Oh, yes," said he, cheerfully, 
"you get used to it. You don't get warm." 

It is not with any desire to exploit the personal 
calorics of a lone gringo who went into Bolivia dressed, 
perhaps, less for its June than for ours, — June is, of 
course, midwinter south of the Equator — that I have 
thus accented this possibly trivial characteristic of the 
country, but solely out of admiration for the vigor and 
fortitude of the Bolivians. Your friends do not need 
to tell you that they are a wonderful people. If they 
were not, they would not be there at all. 

If one may say of this land of Bolivia that it is on 
the roof of the Western world, one might also say that 
the only way to get there is by climbing the fire-escape. 
When the war with Chili ended — the same war in 
which Peru lost her nitrate provinces — her strip of sea- 
coast was gone and she was walled up in the interior. 
Although Chili is now building a railroad through from 
the port of Arica on the Pacific, and American engi- 

104 




Mount Misti looking down from its nineteen thousand feet on the roofs of 

Arequipa. 




The Buried Valley in the desert in which the ancient town of Arequipa lies. 



ACROSS LAKE TITICACA TO LA PAZ 

neers are at work on a system which will connect 
La-Paz with Buenos Aires and the Atlantic, there 
were, when I was there, only two really practicable 
ways of getting to the capital. One was by way of the 
Chilian port of Antofagasta — three days by rail and 
two by stage across the pamva; the other, and the one 
generally taken, even by Chilians, was by way of the 
Peruvian port of Mollendo — two days' journey by rail, 
a night by steamer across Lake Titicaca, and a few 
hours' climb by rail again up to the rim of the mountain 
pocket, at the bottom of which lies the ancient city of 
Our Lady of Peace. 

It is a climb all but as high and quite as wonderful 
as that up the Oroya Railroad in Peru, and of the in- 
teresting things which it reveals, three stand out from 
the rest. One is the monkish city of Arequipa and 
Mount Misti, the dead volcano that looms up for some 
nineteen thousand feet above it; one is this extraor- 
dinary sky-parlor lake, and the third is the railroad 
itself. The gifted Yankee Meiggs built it — as he built 
the Oroya — through a country the greater part of 
which is as bare as a stone quarry, without fuel or 
water or food, where even a sage-brush or a cactus 
would seem luxuriant, and a rattlesnake cheerfully 
human. It is 352 kilometers from the coast to the 
shores of the lake, and for 187 kilometers of the way— 
about 115 miles — it climbs steadily upward to a height 
of 14,666 feet. 

There was not then, nor is there now, — 1908 — any 
wharf to which steamers could tie up at Mollendo, and 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

passengers are taken ashore in small boats through a 
sort of Niagara gorge gateway of rock, which gives to 
mere landing some of the noise and a good deal of the 
excitement of a rescue at sea. And every rail and tie 
for that road, every detached bolt and plate of the 
little steamships that now navigate Titicaca, had to 
be landed thus; every drop of water to be piped 
down, as it is piped to-day, from the mountain streams 
far inland. 

Leaving Mollendo, the train trails out over the 
desert and up and up till the sea lies below like a blue 
floor, falls below the horizon presently, and the conical 
snow-capped peaks of the Cordillera come into vision. 
There is one glimpse over a rock rim of a valley — one 
of those almost dramatic snow-watered valleys laid 
like a strip of pea-green tape among the stones — then 
sand and volcanic rock. The sand-storms of centuries 
have dusted the earth's bleached countenance, even 
the mountain peaks, with a whitish, leprous film. 
Sometimes one even mistakes it for snow. I have never 
seen, even in our Southwestern desert country, any- 
thing so dead-looking as these dusted peaks and flinty 
ribs standing out without shadow or relief in the clear 
blazing sunshine. It is as though life had left them 
and forgotten them since the day of creation, and the 
haze was not so much any common, earthly covering 
as the very dust of ages of empty years gathered upon 
them. 

All day the train climbs through empty, echoing halls 
of rock; then, all at once — in one of those hidden val- 

106 



ACROSS LAKE TITICACA TO LA PAZ 

leys which the old conquerors seemed as fond of seek- 
ing out as though they were ingenious promoters pro- 
viding surprises for travellers of years to come — the 
town of Arequipa; trees and gardens, a running stream, 
and oxen at the plough, a sun-bleached plaza, and a 
yellow cathedral, friars in sandals, white robes and 
brown, taking their sunset walk along the canal; 
schoolboys playing English " footer" in the dust, toy 
tram-cars bumping through the cobbled streets; on 
the bill-boards a notice of to-night's biograph show, and 
of that li viejo y famoso reme&io" — Perry Davis's Pain 
Killer, or, as they have it here, Matadolor de Perry 
Davis. 

Arequipa is the ecclesiastical stronghold of Southern 
Peru. Of the thirty thousand people who inhabit this 
ancient oasis, at least one out of every fifty is in the 
service of the Church; there are four monasteries and 
three nunneries, and the whole town is as antique as a 
piece of Inca pottery dug up out of the ground. It is 
the home also of several higher schools of learning — an 
ideal shelter for that fond bookishness so often found 
in isolated South American towns. Here, for in- 
stance, in the evening paper, "La Bolsa," the entire 
front page, except for advertisements, is devoted to a 
review of a book of poems, "Vibraciones Pslquicas" 
and others, by one E. Zegarra Ballon. The reviewer, 
who regrets that "La Bolsa" has offered him only 
three columns, evidently does not admire Senor Ballon, 
nor his friend Arispe, who, "since he has been editing 
cablegrams of fifty-one words for 'La Prensa' of Lima, 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

considers himself a prosista," just as Ballon considers 
himself a poet. He tears his verse to pieces, phrase by 
phrase, pounds away mightily at "anterior asonants," 
hemistiches, and the like, and finally, collecting the 
phrases which particularly get on his nerves, he re- 
quests his readers, amigos mios, to repeat the following 
litany: 

Glacial frescura . . . 
Oh, Zegarra Ballon! 

Dias oscuros . . . 
Oh, Zegarra Ballon! 

Jazmines lacios . . . 
Oh, Zegarra Ballon! 

Bellos cenidores . . . 
Oh, Zegarra Ballon! etc.. 

And he concludes by inviting them to read on 
Friday Chapter III of the thirty which Cervantes for- 
got to write; which tells " how Don Quixote came to 
the city beneath Mount Misti with his faithful squire 
in search of those horrible giants, "Arispe and Zagarron, 
of his meeting with these geniuses of journalism and 
poetry, and of the ill success which they had with him 
of La Mancha." 

Three things especially interested me in Arequipa: the 
dusty Old- World atmosphere, snow-capped Misti always 
brooding there, and the Harvard Observatory, which 
stands on a rise of ground overlooking the town. The 
telescope here takes care of the southern sky as the 
one in Cambridge does of the northern — trailing about 
the heavens each night alter the variable stars. It is 

108 



ACROSS LAKE TITICACA TO LA PAZ 

not really, in the street-corner meaning of the word, 
so much a telescope as it is a huge camera. A plate 
is exposed and the stars shine upon it. The longer the 
exposure, the more stars eat through the film, as it 
were, and leave their mark, and by exposing it for many 
hours the resulting print looks like a drawing in stippled 
ink. In this way thousands of stars which could not 
even be seen through a strong telescope are located 
with precision. By putting one plate over another, 
eyes trained for this kind of work can tell if there are 
new stars, and when such a discovery is made the new 
star is catalogued and filed away for reference. Every 
clear night the big telescope is opened for the starlight to 
shine in, like a well waiting for the rain, and the young 
New Englanders stand by, watching the clockwork 
and the crossed hairs by which the plate, turning with 
the heavens, is kept at precisely the same points, each 
having his trick at the wheel, so to speak, like men at sea. 
This little oasis — the house with its brisk cheerful- 
ness of wood, the hedges and tennis-court, the very 
twang of the New England accent — might have been 
sent down from Massachusetts in a box. From the 
upper veranda you can look down on the yellow walls 
and church-towers of the town, the tawny flanks of 
mountains that blaze in the afternoon sun like the 
yellow mountains Maxfield Parrish paints, and Mount 
Misti lifting up its mysterious and creepy head as 
smooth almost from floor to peak as some titanic tent. 
From our chairs on the veranda the crater was about 
ten miles in an air line, and through a field telescope 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

we could plainly see the cross that was planted there 
when the twentieth century came in. There was tennis 
on an asphalt court at the Observatory — one feels like 
a dweller on Olympus playing under the gaze of Misti 
in that crystalline air. English-speaking folk would 
come up on horseback from the town, and afterward 
there would be tea in the twilight of that blazing, un- 
earthly light. With the Old- World town below it, and 
Misti watching by, this little oasis stands out in one's 
memory — a different, unexpected thing, complete unto 
itself in all this alien wilderness, like a ship at sea. 
The priests say their masses year in and year out in 
the town below, more mines are exploited, politicians 
rage, drummers, gold-hunters, heathen, imagine vain 
things, but up on their cloistered mount its inhabitants 
pursue their quiet way, resting through the heat of the 
day, playing their home games as the sun goes down, 
at night, when all the rest of their alien world is 
asleep, working away through the still hours with 
their glittering dust-cloud stars. 

As you leave the coast and climb to the colder levels, 
the temperament of the humans changes with the air 
and landscape. The mountain people are sturdier and 
more phlegmatic, less vivacious and eager. Some such 
contrast is the easiest generalization to be made of 
Bolivians as compared with Peruvians ; it applies even 
half-way up the slope to such a buried city as Arequipa 
compared with Lima and the coast. 

On Arequipa, too, broods the spell of the ancient 
Church. By the time I had dined the evening I 

110 




<u 'B 



o 




ACROSS LAKE TITICACA TO LA PAZ 

arrived and started forth to look at the town, it lay 
dead and silent under its cold stars, the only sound the 
rush of mountain water in the open drains. But there 
was light in the cathedral, and within on the floor — for 
there were no pews — knelt, it seemed, all the women in 
the town, like so many black-birds in their sable mantos, 
whispering and crossing themselves. Here were the 
lights and the ambitious glitter and the antiphonal 
choruses echoing through the arches, yet outside no 
background of noise and busy worldliness to put it in 
its place. It was as though all the town were turned 
into a cloister; as though, having no opportunity to 
sin, it were determined to carry out the other end of 
the bargain at any rate, and fancy itself condemned. 

The flesh was not altogether neglected, however, that 
night, and toward nine o'clock, a few squares away, a 
lonely little band, muffled in ponchos and neck-scarfs, 
tooted in the frosty air, calling the men-folks and the 
irreligious to an exhibition of the American biograph. 

The latter has become almost an institution in parts 
of South America. Where no other theatrical enter- 
tainment is to be had, one will generally find a biograph 
show. "All the world ought to have one," an ad- 
vertisement in the paper read that night — "I. Fam- 
ilies: For its modern repertoire of operas, zarzuelas, 
etc., to pass happy and diverting moments without 
going out of the house in the evening. II. Merchants : 
To attract the attention of the public to their estab- 
lishments. III. Proprietors of haciendas: To amuse 
their workmen on Sundays." 

Ill 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

There was so much Indian blood in the audience 
that night, as is always the case in the interior, that it 
suggested a crowd of Japanese soldiers. Broad- 
cheeked and stolid they sat while the great world 
flickered before them. From Norway to Damascus we 
jumped, from Jerusalem to Paris and Madrid — the 
fountains playing at Versailles, Hebrews kissing the 
Wall of Lamentations, a "pony" ballet in a musical 
comedy, skeeing in Norway, with fresh-cheeked girls 
sweeping almost out of the picture and into the audi- 
torium, the snow spraying from the skees, the wind 
blowing their hair across their faces, laughing as they 
came. There was a royal bull-fight at Madrid — even 
the sweating flanks of the bull panting up and down, 
the pretty bonnet of some tourist which, in the excite- 
ment, had insisted in bobbing in front of the camera. 

I am not an agent for any picture-machine, but I 
must confess that it seemed rather wonderful to me, 
this very glitter and pulse-beat of Europe up here in a 
stoveless theatre among a lot of Indians. And I re- 
gret that the audience showed much more enthusiasm 
over a Byronic young man who gave an imitation of 
the battle of the Yalu on a guitar, and stood in the 
cobbled court outside wrapped in a velveteen cloak 
and gazed at us superciliously as we started home. 

Between Arequipa and Lake Titicaca the leprous 
desert gives way to grassy table-lands and yawning 
sinks, like dried-up lakes, from the rims of which, as 
the train creaks round, you can see ant armies of sheep 
grazing the bottoms a mile or so below. There are 

112 



ACROSS LAKE TITICACA TO LA PAZ 

llamas and alpacas up here, and wild ducks and other 
water-fowl. It is as though — and this is the feeling 
one has all through the country from Titicaca down the 
Bolivian plateau — this were a new world, having all 
the physical conformation of our common seaboard 
world, and set on the very top of it. Here, for instance, 
is this extraordinary lake, something like 135 miles 
long and 70 miles wide, and over 1,000 feet deep at 
its deepest. Snow peaks climb up into the blue all 
about it as though they had forgotten that they were 
beginning not at the sea level, but at 12,500 feet; you 
take a little steamer with stewards and state-rooms and 
all the rest of the ocean paraphernalia in miniature, 
and ride all night and part of the next day — people 
even get seasick if it's windy. 

It was on one of the islands of Titicaca that its illus- 
trious progenitors are believed to have started the Inca 
race, and the ruins of the Temple of the Sun still are 
there to prove that this is true. All round the lake rise 
terraced fields in the Inca fashion, with little brown 
villages and church-towers here and there. It re- 
minded me, in its narrower parts, of what the Mohawk 
Valley might be were it half-full of water; and very 
lovely it was with its cultivated shores and water-fowl 
and Illimani and Sorata and their snow-capped brothers 
glistening in the sun. 

From the Bolivian side of the lake it is a two hours' 
railroad ride through a chocolate-colored country, 
furnished with prehistoric monuments and herdsmen in 
ponchos, to the rim of a valley, at the bottom of which, 

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with a dramatic suddenness for which the old conquerors 
never prepared more skilfully, appear the roofs of La 
Paz. They lie more than a thousand feet below, and 
one could, as the phrase goes, almost drop a stone on 
them. No railroad could make such a descent, and 
you reach the town — together with the freight that has 
been lightered, loaded, and unloaded goodness knows 
how many times in crossing the Isthmus, riding through 
the Mollendo surf, getting over Titicaca — by serpen- 
tining down on a trolley-car, the power for which was 
supplied when I was there by imported coal at $30 
"gold" atom 

La Paz started out in 1548 as Nuestra Senora de la 
Paz, but after the battle of Ayacucho, which about 
finished Spanish rule in South America, it became La 
Paz de Ayacucho, so that the " peace" now referred to 
is that which the battle brought. It has sixty thousand 
people, and they live in very solid stone houses up and 
down hills so steep that there is almost no practical use 
for a horse and carriage. 

All the work and the burden-bearing are done by 
cholos or Indians, who have the good taste to dress 
themselves in homespun ponchos in beautiful reds, 
browns, old roses, and greens, which, when sufficiently 
soiled and sun-bleached, take on all the soft richness 
of Oriental rugs. The result is that every vista of 
narrow cobblestoned street is brightened and enriched 
by them, and when one thinks of La Paz one sees these 
satisfying ponchos — like poppies growing in a field of 
grain. 

114 



ACROSS LAKE TITICACA TO LA PAZ 

There are a great many Indians in La Paz, and they 
and their extraordinary fiestas, when they dress up as 
cows, Empire dandies, and what not, and dance in 
front of the cathedral, give the town a color which 
rather sets it apart from other South American capi- 
tals. The Indian women of the better class — the 
various grades of Aymara, Quichua, and cholo are too 
complex to be explained here — are great belles and 
wear curious little round straw hats with narrow 
brims, silken shawls on feast days, and an assortment 
of skirts that make them almost as broad as they are 
long. Whenever they have saved enough money they 
invest in another skirt, and popular tradition is that 
these are put on, one over the other, and never taken 
off. The result is not only extraordinary to behold, 
but something which keeps them warm, satisfies their 
vanity, and performs the functions of a savings 
bank. 

There is a story told of a British premier who, when 
the British minister was ridden out of La Paz on a 
donkey, ordered a fleet to proceed to the Pacific at 
once and shell the town ! When he was informed that 
it was several days' journey inland and two miles up 
in the air he decided that a capital whose location the 
British Government did not know could not exist. 
The minister to Bolivia was therefore recalled, and no 
diplomatic relations existed between the two countries 
for some years. It is a curious fact that, in spite of 
its isolation and its unspoiled Indians, and the troops 
of llamas that are as common in its streets as electric 

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cars on Broadway, La Paz is, by reason of the great 
mining activity in Bolivia, unusually cosmopolitan, 
and the cafe of its principal hotel toward the end of 
the afternoon buzzes with more businesslike-appearing 
men, perhaps, than any other place on the West Coast 
outside of Valparaiso. 

The sight of them was surprising and exhilarating 
away up here in the air, as was the dining-room full 
of folks chattering almost as much English and German 
as Spanish. It was a very excellent table-d'hote they 
served us that night, even though Irish stew was 
spelled " Airistiu" and the vast room into which I 
was presently ushered — possibly because the govern- 
ment of half the town had gone across the pampa to 
Oruru to dedicate a new railroad — with a canopied 
bedstead, was almost as imposing as those which are 
reserved at home for visiting princes of Abyssinia or 
Siam. 

Bolivia has enormous resources, a sturdy people, and 
almost no debt. All the country needs is a continua- 
tion of stable government and better means of com- 
munication. It is more than three times as large as 
France, it has rubber, coca, coffee and cocoa, and its 
mineral wealth is incalculable. The mines of Potosi, 
from which Spain took six hundred million dollars 
worth of silver before Bolivia became independent, a 
hundred years ago, are still yielding. There is copper 
and gold, but the stake now raced for, and that which 
is bringing in the skilled preparedness of modern min- 
ing, is that very precious non-" precious" metal — tin. 

116 



ACROSS LAKE TITICACA TO LA PAZ 

Few countries have this metal, and Bolivia is one of 
them, and the quantity of it already in sight is one of 
the main forces behind the development, upon whose 
threshold this hermit country now stands. 



117 



CHAPTER VIII 
A FOURTH OF JULY IN BOLIVIA 

If you ever crossed an Arizona desert in a covered 
wagon — lashing the fagged, sweat-clotted horses for- 
ward foot by foot, until you reached the water tank at 
last and skimmed off toward the horizon with the Over- 
land; if you ever struggled through the northern woods 
in winter, with your mittens freezing the moment you 
paused, no food or matches in your clothes, until, 
some time in the night you stumbled on station lamps, 
met the confident shine of steel rails and sank into the 
blessed, steam-heated Philistine embrace of a Pullman 
car — you will have difficulty in reading what Mr. 
Ruskin had to say about railroads with the proper 
superior thrill. 

What a railroad system might mean to a country 
three times as large as France, shut away from the sea 
in the upper stories of the Andes and traversed by 
little else than mule-paths and llama-trails, is not 
hard to imagine. Such a hermit country was 
Bolivia in the days when Don Quixote told Sancho 
Panza about the mines of Potosi, and, such, except 
for two arms of railroad, it is to-day — although the 
mines of Potosi still yield, syndicates and steam and 

118 



A FOURTH OF JULY IN BOLIVIA 

smelters have replaced llama-trails and Indian slaves, 
and the old stories of silver and gold bid fair to be 
repeated of tin. 

And on the Fourth of July, 1906, at the town of Oruru, 
in the centre of that twelve-thousand-foot table-land, 
which stretches between the heads of the Andes from 
Lake Titicaca to La Paz down past Sucre and Potosi 
to Argentina, they began to build the railroad which 
is to change things. It will put ore trains and pas- 
senger cars up in this thin-air mine country, open 
up the tropical forest country of Eastern Bolivia and 
connect the plateau cities with each other, with Buenos 
Aires and with the Pacific. The wealth of the country 
will be opened to those ready to develop it; the cold 
plateau cities, which scarcely know what fires are, 
may be able to warm themselves; the government 
will cease to travel about on mule-back, and little- 
old-Bolivia-up-in-the-air will be a hermit no more. 

At least that was what the Government party 
thought, and the blonde young Yankee engineers who 
were on the job, and, one supposes, the New York 
bankers who were putting up the money. The Presi- 
dent, a good part of the army, the diplomatic corps, 
most of the business men of La Paz, and the Arch- 
bishop himself travelled nearly two hundred miles 
across the bleak pampa to turn over with due dignity 
the first shovelful of earth; and because North Amer- 
icans were building the road they chose to do this on 
the Fourth of July. 

"If," said El Tribuno, "the Sixth of August, 

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1825, marks the beginning of our political independence, 
the beginning of our industrial independence, which is 
an indispensable complement of the first, will be 
marked by the Fourth of July, 1906. 

"July is the month of great events. Foremost is 
the anniversary of the independence of the United 
States of North America, indisputably the first of the 
younger peoples, and one of the mightiest Powers on 
earth. 

"Here is a race which, casting from it the lyric 
dreams of the Latin soul and looking at life in another 
way, would seem, by the success with which it dom- 
inates present-day civilization, better to have under- 
stood the destiny of humanity and to have discovered 
the key of gold to unlock all those problems which 
have troubled the world for so many centuries." 

My own personal and physical understanding of 
what the Ferrocarriles de Oruro a Cochambamba will 
bring to Bolivia began some one hundred and eighty- 
six miles up the frozen plateau when the bi-weekly 
stage started from La Paz. The stage line was owned 
by a young Scotchman, who had changed his first 
name to a Spanish equivalent, "Santiago," because, 
as you would readily have understood had you heard 
him imitate it, he didn't like the Bolivian pronuncia- 
tion of "James." One could travel with the mail all 
day and all night at a gallop and reach Oruro in twenty- 
four hours, or one could pay half as much, sleep at the 
Indian town of Sicasica and do the sixty-two leagues 
in thirty-six. I chose the slower way, and at dawn we 

120 




President Montes and his escort at the end of their two-hundred-mile drive 
from La Paz to Oruro, across the Bolivian Plateau. 




President Montes and the Archbishop just after turning the first shovelful 
of earth on the new railway. 



A FOURTH OF JULY IN BOLIVIA 

serpentined by trolley car up from the sink-like pocket, 
fifteen hundred feet deep, at the bottom of which lies 
the City of Peace. Frost mist still lay over the town 
like wool, but the sun had climbed over the far edge of 
the earth and was flinging its level rays wide over the 
empty plateau. Something in its cold blaze, in the 
thin air, as piercing as that of mid-winter in New 
York, in this table-land lifted twelve thousand feet 
above the sea, gave one the sensation of walking on 
the top of the world. 

Six shop-worn mules and an army wagon waited at 
the top, and into it bundled the eight of us — two 
bearded German engineers, a pretty German woman, 
who was wondering whether her Mann would meet 
her at the other side of the desert, and several Bolivians 
— a young man with shifty little black eyes and a way 
of holding a cigarette as though it were a club, the 
lighted end inside his palm; an old man and his shy 
granddaughter, and a severe, middle-aged woman in a 
shabby black plush coat and a rakish, drooping black 
hat. She had a fine aquiline profile and keen, dis- 
illusioned eyes, and reminded one of some of our very 
literary and rather leathery ladies at home. Most of 
the time she drowsed, with her head drooping on her 
breast like some damp bird, a reverie from which she 
would shake herself to smoke a cigarette, holding it 
close to her face in her right hand, the elbow supported 
in the palm of her left while she gazed at it sullenly 
through narrowed lids. 

The chariot got under way with a shower of stones, 

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considerable cracking of the whip, and a long whistle 
with a hiss in the middle of it — a wild, vicious sound, 
as if of a doom approaching rapidly from behind and 
about to overwhelm us. A little Indian boy stood on 
the back step or ran alongside, and it was his duty to 
keep this eerie whistle going constantly, to lash each 
mule in turn on its raw spot, throw stones at its head, 
and supply the same ammunition to the driver. This 
is rapid transit in Bolivia. 

From the moment we started, until sundown the 
next night, except while we slept or paused for new 
mules and coffee at the little mud tambos along the 
way, that goading whistle was always in our ears, like 
the blowing of a steady gale. Whee-ee-ee-eu! Tzs- 
tzss-tzss! Whee-ee-ee-eu! Sometimes between popu- 
lous villages we had two boys, sturdy, bright-eyed 
mites in dusty ponchos, with the crimson-russet cheeks 
which come to those who live in the thin air and 
blazing sunlight of the Andean plateau, and hands and 
bare feet so ground in with dirt that they had become 
black and leathery, like the web-foot of a goose or 
duck. One whipped and the other threw stones or 
picked them up for the driver. They followed us, as 
gulls follow a ship, from village to village. As tireless 
they were as gulls, and as free, these brown, bare- 
headed little coach-dogs, running along for miles and 
miles. With what an earnest importance they kept 
to their work, pushed in the gullies, and dug their 
horny little toes into the gravel — as though they knew 
they were helping in the work of the great world. No 

122 



A FOURTH OF JULY IN BOLIVIA 

master but the relentless gallop of the six-mule team; 
here to-night, there to-morrow; supper in the tambo 
kitchen; his bed where his poncho was; the chance — 
who could tell when? — of a munificent passenger toss- 
ing out a complete, unlighted cigarette. If one must 
live in a dried-mud village on the top of the world, how 
superior and glorious a life! 

All the way the bleak plateau lay a yellow trough 
between the horizon mountains, treeless and grassless, 
with occasional patches of barley in waffle-iron, walled- 
in fields. Every ten kilometres or so was a baked- 
mud village, exactly like the one left behind, where one 
could almost always get hot coffee, pie-crusty native 
bread, cigarettes, good bottled beer, and clumsy 
dulces. And that night, when we lifted our half- 
frozen bodies out of the stage, the poor German lady 
panting with siroche, there awaited us a cheerful post- 
house dining-room, warmed and lighted by an enor- 
mous kerosene lamp, a supper of soup, sardines, mut- 
ton, potatoes, jam, and what not, that melted into our 
yawning interiors like the honey of Hymettus. 

The bedrooms straggled around the three sides of 
the patio, each with one window and a door opening 
on the court as from a cave. Two Bolivians from the 
up stage were already reposing in mine, after having 
hermetically sealed both window and door. When I 
attempted to introduce a whisper of ventilation they 
declared, in vehement Spanish, that I didn't under- 
stand the customs of the country and we would die of 
pneumonia before morning. And as both were able- 

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bodied and mercurial-looking gentlemen with revolvers 
lying on chairs close to their pillows, we compromised 
by blowing out the candle, and bolting the door noisily, 
under cover of which the minority member deftly put 
his fist through one of the panes of paper which served 
for window glass, and undoubtedly saved the lives of 
all three. 

In the pitch darkness of 4 a.m. there was a knock, 
and a " Buenos dias, senores! Vamos! Vamos!" 
And so up and into our clothes and off again — Whee- 
ee-ee-eu! Tzs-tzss-tzss! Whee-ee-ee-eu! — everybody 
chattering and filled with the excitement and optimism 
which follow getting up at dark, drinking two or three 
cups of hot coffee, and starting for a strange place. 
The curtains were drawn tight for warmth's sake; in 
this inner cosiness the runner's hissing whistle sounds 
far-away and cheery, like the faint wail of the loco- 
motive as an express train whirls at night through the 
rain, and we chatted with the good-natured friend- 
liness proper to fellow-travellers on the open road, 
laughing across the light of a couple of dripping can- 
dles which we took turns holding, like beatas in a 
church. 

In the alertness which comes at such an hour, every 
material happening became something vivid, fine and 
newly significant — the creak of the carriage, the rising 
glimmer in the east, the glitter of the cold stars through 
the curtain flaps, the different noises of the wheels. 

Once the sound changed and became soft. "Arena!" 
mumbled one of the bearded Teutons in Spanish, and 

124 



A FOURTH OF JULY IN BOLIVIA 

it seemed immensely important that we were pulling 
through sand. The German lady, recovering from her 
siroche, began to talk about the lunch — waiting for us 
forty kilometres farther on — with that affectionate 
contemplation, almost sentiment, with which the Ger- 
mans speak of such things. Stroking with a sort of 
tender melancholy the vicuna rug spread over her 
knee, she wondered if vicunas were good to eat. One 
of the bearded engineers nodded solemnly: "Ein 
junger vicuna schmeckt ganz gut!" said he. Every- 
body puffed his cigarette a little harder, and nodded 
approvingly — it was as though in that rocking stage, 
in the flicker of our feeble candles, we were at a 
banquet, discussing the bouquet of some exquisite 
wine. 

Nothing about that ride was lost — the rattle and 
the dust, the tawny, vacuous landscape; the very 
chill and sterile soul of that roofland was worn into 
our very flesh. And yet one will ride from New York 
to Chicago, through a country many times fairer, and 
of all the messages it has to give carry away only 
a fretful memory of noise and telegraph posts and 
the wretched air of the sleeping car in which one gets 
up in the morning. There was something in the old 
way after all! 

Dawn crept up over the eaves of the east, the can- 
dles faded sickly, the exhilaration of the start drowsed 
away, and we crept into our shells and stayed there. 
But steadily the pelted mules galloped on; always, 
like a stage storm-maker, came the windy whistle and 

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hiss of the driver and the chicos running alongside. 
One could not sit beside the driver for a few miles 
without increasing one's already high regard for mules. 
Each had a raw spot on his hind leg where continuous 
lashing had worn through, stones big enough almost 
to fell an ox rained about their devoted heads and 
were shaken off like so many flies. The mercurial 
driver did all he could to impede progress by whipping 
them about their ears and tangling up his team. Yet, 
with nothing to back them up but barley straw, they 
managed to pound on league after league at a gallop, 
and when they slipped out of harness at last, reeking, 
the only grooming they got was a roll in the tambo 
corral till the raw spots were covered with dust. And 
all this lashing and stoning and shivering and counting 
the hours that eight people might travel in two days 
the distance an express train would cover in five or 
six hours. 

Burro trains loaded with the precious firewood and 
tundra moss of the bare plateau trailed past us steadily; 
toward the end of the afternoon a sand storm en- 
veloped us like a sudden shower. At last the roofs of 
a town developed in the distance, and a train rolled 
across the horizon like toy cars on a board. The world 
came back as it always will at the sound of a loco- 
motive bell, and the German lady began to talk of 
the cities she had seen, of Vienna and New York and 
Rio, the time she had climbed for edelweiss; and so 
we rattled into Oruro presently, through streets flaming 
with the red, yellow, and green Bolivian flag. 

126 



A FOURTH OF JULY IN BOLIVIA 

The President himself had taken in a closed carriage 
the same drive we had taken in a stage. The •cavalry- 
had ridden and the infantry tramped it, and they 
jammed the cafe of the plaza hotel, spurs clinking 
and swords dragging on the floor, drinking each other's 
healths. In upstairs rooms chilly diplomats from 
countries where fires are known huddled round tiny 
kerosene heaters, bundled in their ulsters. And at 
the contractor's headquarters, excited young engineers, 
satirical about this Latin "flubdub," yet proud of their 
part in it, worked over invitations and arrangements 
for the banquet the next night, like undergraduates 
preparing for a "prom." 

There were great doings, in short, in the old mud- 
colored town, even though the Opposition's paper 
declared that since its exclusive publication of the 
"contrato monstruoso which the Government had ac- 
cepted without revision from the New York bankers, 
the level-headed portion of the illustrious people of 
Oruro had been visibly disillusioned about this rail- 
road business." They would join in the fiestas, to be 
sure, as spectators and workers, but they "will not, 
in any unknowing or servile fashion, act like so many 
circus acrobats, lest they should find themselves 
blushing to-morrow when the mysteries of these nego- 
tiations are fully revealed. 

"There does not exist in Oruro that frenetic en- 
thusiasm which some badly informed journalists 
suppose. The industrial centre in which we live has 
more understanding and balance than those" — one 

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supposes the politicians of La Paz — " who boast of 
wielding the wand of progress." 

It had kept things stirred up, as Opposition papers 
in Latin-American towns can consistently be relied 
upon to do. It had somehow secured a copy of the 
contract, and this was published with the following 
ingenious introduction: 

IMPORTANT SPIRITUALISTIC SESSION 

One of the principal editors of our paper, who is a good 
medium and a skilful spiritualist, has put himself in com- 
munication with the spirits of the street of Las Aldabas in 
Lima, and by this means has obtained the famous contract 
quicker than he could by telegraph. We guarantee the fol- 
lowing to be an exact reproduction of what the spirits said. 

The Spirit speaks: This introduction doesn't interest you, 
Mr. Editor. 

Mr. Editor: No, good spirit. Let's get down to essentials. 
Dictate to me the contract, as offered by the attorney for the 
American contractors. 

The Spirit: Here goes . 

Then followed the contract — that is to say, part of 
it, for, as the Opposition's paper was "setting up" 
the Spirit communication, an incident occurred which 
"so stupefied us with surprise that we were left unable 
to decide whether to give vent to our indignation or 
to meditate sadly on a happening which these serfs of 
the palace would doubtless call part of their boasted 
progress, but which," etc., etc. 

It seemed that "El sub-director" of the government 

128 




c 



o 



A FOURTH OF JULY IN BOLIVIA 

organ, chagrined at learning that his rival was about 
to publish the document which "will be the shroud of 
the Montes administration," armed himself with an 
unpaid bill which some partisan had turned over to 
him for the purpose and attached the premises at the 
psychological instant of going to press. 

A "villainous attempt, frustrated by producing in- 
stanter the necessary cash, but not until it was too 
late to attempt to print more than half the contract. 
. . . The rest to-morrow, our distinguidos y amables 
readers. Meanwhile be confident that we are watch- 
ing these destroyers of the fatherland, who toy with 
its future as they wouldn't trifle with even their own 
haciendas, and with their prefects, police, and sub- 
sidized press attempt to suppress contracts which 
hand over without scruple to speculators the treasury 
of Bolivia!" 

Except for this faint, jarring note — and there's 
always an Opposition paper — the celebration went 
merrily on. Even the Opposition's paper, interested 
in spite of itself in a glorious Fourth, "vehemently 
urged that the municipal carts and mules in the Plaza 
Castro de Padilla, be transferred to some appropriate 
stable-yard, where they would cease to detract from 
the beauty and culture of Oruro," and that "the 
wagon for aguas sucias be painted an agreeable color 
so that the city's guests might not be made ill by 
looking upon it." 

And at the gala performance that night of the 
famous zarzuelas, "Jugar con Fuego" and "El Santo 

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de la Isidore)/' although the orchestra and chorus were 
unprepared — "and our dilettante public will not put 
up with indifferently rendered music, particularly 
when they are familiar with it," — " there was not a 
'but' in Mr. Monte's tenor singing," Mme. Ruiz scored 
a veritable triumph and "the simpatica Andriu even 
more than with her artistic skill, enchanted the world 
with her plastic curves of the Cytherean Venus." 

The next morning, at about the time the Fourth of 
July chowder parties were starting down the bay at 
home, the frosty air of the plaza was split and shivered 
with bugle calls and the President, the Prefect, and 
the other dignitaries in evening clothes issued from the 
low Government building and marched bare-headed and 
with tremendous dignity around the plaza to the 
church. While mass was being said there, and the 
soldiers in the hotel were drinking saluds to each other 
and destruction to their enemies, the young engineers 
crowded into their camp cook-tent on the windy 
pampa, a mile or so from town — where, a century or 
two from now, a Union Station may be — and watching 
the cook bake flapjacks and make cocoa of condensed 
milk, wondered what the folks were doing at home. 

It was very cold out there on the pampa, the snow 
was beginning to sift down from the mountains, and 
Fourth of July picnics in the North seemed very 
pleasant things. Some of them had not been as near 
to civilization as this in months. They had been up in 
the mines, or surveying, making maps, sleeping in tents 
with the thermometer round zero, and this opening 

130 



A FOURTH OF JULY IN BOLIVIA 

of the railroad, getting into evening clothes again and 
banqueting the President was something of an event. 

The company had prepared a gold medallion in 
honor of the day for the President, silver ones for those 
in top hats, and bronze ones for the favored populace. 
There was a silver shovel and pick and a penholder of 
gold with which to sign the contract. From the tent 
in which this was to be done streamed the Bolivian 
and American flags, and hung on it were banners and 
paper-covered hoops bearing such mottoes as "Nihil 
sine labore," and cornucopias from which showered 
the Spanish words for "liberal culture," "railroads," 
"treaties of peace," "progress," and the various other 
things which the Ins-paper said were, and the Outs- 
paper said were not, brought by the administration of 
Excmo. Sr. Presidente Ismael Montes. 

The wind freshened and the snow was whistling 
down from the hills when the procession started out 
from town. The infantry came first, with a great band 
of sixty pieces. At its head was a squad of diminutive 
drummer-boys, with white gaiters and stiff little cock- 
ades and great white breast-straps that vaguely re- 
called old battle pictures, and a strange aegis sort of 
thing, hung with little bells, jangling splendidly. The 
cavalry came after, and the President, in his carriage, 
last, surrounded by his lancers — white men all — in 
smart hussar uniforms, their scarlet pennants flapping 
like confetti against the snow. 

With that instinct for effect which is born in all 
South Americans this little army spread out into a 

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great hollow square — nearly a quarter of a mile across, 
it seemed — the infantry walling two sides, the cavalry 
and the lancers the third, with the snow-swept space 
between; the drums rolling constantly and bugles 
shrilling back and forth across the wind. 

The young chief-engineer, in professional disdain of 
Latin finery, strode up and down in sweater and put- 
tees, the crowd pushed, and just what happened when 
the President turned the first shovelful of earth I 
cannot be sure, because a lancer was riding his horse 
back and forth across my feet. But the Archbishop's 
golden crozier showed above the crowd, and everybody 
cried " Bravo!" and "Viva!" and presently the people 
fell back and the Archbishop approached the tent, 
accompanied by a soldierly looking, well-built young 
man. "Viva el Presidente de la Republica!" said a 
loud, clear voice, and "Viva el Presidente de la Re- 
publica!" repeated every one — loudest of all a man 
standing up in the seat of an open hack, who, so 
one of the young engineers explained, had fought the 
railroad hardest of all and wanted to be prefect now. 

Then the contract was signed, and the Archbishop 
consecrated that, too, and all those who could get near 
enough got a medal and drank the health of Bolivia, 
the railroad, and President Montes in the engineers' 
champagne, while the cholo shovelmen, wrapped in 
their ponchos, huddled aside, stared in their half- 
melancholy, apathetic way. 

Then everybody trooped back to town, and the 
President reviewed the soldiers from a balcony on the 

132 



A FOURTH OF JULY IN BOLIVIA 

plaza, each band halting beneath and playing its 
warriors past, then falling in and marching on out of 
the square. Last of all, very slowly on their travel- 
stained horses, came the buglers of the guard, shrilling 
out the national hymn. Something in its wailing 
minor chords, in the shrill abandon which the thin 
mountain air helped give the sound, seemed to make 
it the very voice of this bleak hermit-land, set in chill 
isolation above our heavier clouds. All in the plaza 
uncovered, even the Indians took off their queer ear- 
flap caps, and a quick protest of " Sombrero! Som- 
brero!" snatched off the only hat that I saw for an 
instant forgot. The empty sides of the plaza had 
filled with troops which had already passed in review, 
and these stood still until the air was played through. 
Then the bands struck up, and, considerably to the 
gratification of the young engineers, one of them was 
smashing out the " Washington Post" as it marched 
away. 

It was a great day for Bolivia, a " transcendental" 
one, as they would say. And it was a great day for 
the young Americans who had come away down here 
to do the work. Long after the President's banquet 
that night was over they were celebrating the Fourth, 
crowded in a melancholy, frigid bedroom of Oruro's 
melancholy, unheated hotel, and the poncho-clad 
natives, outside in the dark, listened and wondered 
as they heard them roaring, "Fse been working on the 
railroad," and reiterating, with tremendous fervor, that 
the moon shone bright o'er their old Kentucky home. 

133 



CHAPTER IX 

THE OTHER SAN FRANCISCO 

A few minutes after the bandits who row passengers 
ashore from the steamer's anchorage at Valparaiso had 
set us down at the landing stage, I dropped in at the 
bank and asked a gentleman there what might be the 
show places of the town. He opened his mouth to 
speak, but was interrupted by the jingling of his desk 
telephone. Whirling round in his pivot chair, he first 
chastised in English the switchboard operator who had 
kept him waiting, then talked about nitrate for five 
minutes with the Chilian on the other end of the wire, 
left a swift British benediction with the switchboard 
boy, then replied: 

" There are none — Valparaiso is a place to work and 
eat and sleep in." 

This was not the whole truth about the city which — 
painfully so since the earthquake — bears much the 
same relation to the Southern continent that San Fran- 
cisco does to the Northern, but it did seem very near 
it. Its harbor full of ships from all the seven seas, the 
sun-shot fog lifting slowly from them, the cluster of 
misty hills up and down which its houses climb, all sug- 
gest our city by the Golden Gate. But the strident 

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THE OTHER SAN FRANCISCO 

busyness of what, at first sight, seemed almost a British 
and German colony, belonged to quite another place. 
Work was, indeed, what had herded all these Teuton, 
Italian, English, French, and Spanish folk together; 
their main thought — other people's money. 

You have come, let us say, down the coast, still 
somewhat saturated with the drowsy sun-drenched 
air of the Caribbean. You have trekked up into the 
interior from Mollendo to La Paz and the bleak plateau 
country, seen the suspended lakes, the llama trains, 
the poncho-clad natives, the crystalline isolation of 
that part of the world; then turned toward the Pacific 
and followed the railroad down the long twelve- 
thousand-foot slope to Chile and the port of Anto- 
fagasta. Directly one crosses the line into Chile one 
feels the approaching grip of a swifter, busier civiliza- 
tion — becomes aware that the railroad is one of those 
far-flung antennae of the keen modern world. The 
train pulls up at a corrugated iron settlement baking in 
the desert sun; low barracks sprawl stiffly in the heat 
shimmer, there is a smoking chimney, many little tram- 
cars loaded with chunks of what looks like whitish 
mud. Businesslike men — blonde Britons in riding 
breeches and puttees; Germans; Italians with black, 
delicate beards like those of opera barytones — converse 
tersely through the car windows with men just like 
them who are riding through; as the train starts, 
swing on to their ponies and canter off over the 
pampa again. 

This is the land of the nitrate oficinas. The whitish 

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mud is what the great war between Chile and Peru was 
fought about ; all the energy of Chile is absorbed in it 
and will be until the fields are exhausted or some near- 
sighted German chemist, many thousands of miles 
away, discovers how to make nitrate out of air. Then 
what will become of the army and the navy and the 
aristocracy which live off this strange wealth spread 
out like so much free gold ? No mining is as easy as 
this mere surface scraping ; to prepare the caliche, as the 
crude saltpetre is called, separate the iodine, and turn 
the bulk of the remainder into fertilizer, is as simple, one 
might almost say, as making coffee or boiling eggs. Over 
thirty million quintails — a Spanish quintail weighs 
102 pounds — are exported yearly. Between 7,000,000 
and 8,000,000 quintails go to England, for herself and 
the Continent: 5,000,000 to France, about 1,000,000 to 
Germany, about 5,000,000 to the United States. The 
whole industry is gathered into a trust which regulates 
the production, there are some sixty oficinas which 
employ some 19,000 men, and seven seaports depend 
for their existence on these shipments. The capital 
invested in nitrates and the railroads to transport it 
is about $60,000,000, and always remembering the 
near-sighted chemist, the life of the industry, even 
without the discovery of new deposits, ought to be at 
least twenty-five years. Many Chilians will shrug 
their shoulders and tell you: "Forever." Others, 
more enlightened, even though they consider it a 
will-o'-the-wisp which the country has been chasing 
instead of beginning at the bottom and developing 

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itself in a sensible, all-round fashion, as sooner or later 
it must — will tell you: "It's like a balance, nitrates 
will go down, agriculture and manufacturing come up." 
And pert outsiders throw up their hands and say: 
"When the nitrates go, the bottom drops out. There's 
nothing else here — and there you are." It is interest- 
ing, whichever way you look at it — this hardy, mili- 
tant nation, cocky master of the West Coast, gulping 
down its easy riches like a boy eating the frosting 
off his cake. 

You ride down into the strange leprous desert, then, 
past a volcano or two lazily smoking, past dried-up 
salt or borax lakes lying like so much snow, into the 
nitrate country. Past these corrugated iron barracks, 
smoking nitrate stills, lines of what might be tomb- 
stones trailing across the bleached landscape — the 
boundaries between claims. Presently Antofagasta, 
with thirty or forty ships lying in the roadstead, wait- 
ing, as they're always waiting, at these wharfless ports. 
A rusty, raw, sprawling town, with young Englishmen 
who play polo on Sunday morning, and streets and 
natives which would fit into Williamsburg or Jersey 
City almost as well as Latin America. Touching at 
Coquimbo, a bit farther down the coast, you run, per- 
haps, into a Chilian cruiser, popping busily at a float- 
ing target towed by a naphtha launch back and forth 
across the bay. 

And then at last you steam into Valparaiso harbor — 
if such one may call this treacherous roadstead, which 
is a mill-pond when the wind is south, and rises up 

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when the "norther" sweeps into it. and sinks ships 
where they lie — full of masts, funnels, put-putting 
launches and yelling fleteros. The riveters are clanking 
away at a deep-sea freighter, standing high in the dry- 
dock; a ten-thousand-ton mail boat is just getting 
under way for Buenos Aires, Rio, and the Continent, 
touching at the Falklands for wool; from the sea-wall 
come the shrill whistles of big German express loco- 
motives, and a moment after you step ashore some 
business man like this one tells you that the only 
things to do in Valparaiso are to eat, sleep, and work. 
You have crossed the Line. This is the hemisphere of 
Cape Town and Sydney and Melbourne and Buenos 
Aires — the real South America. 

Valparaiso has about 140,000 people, but as the 
principal port of the West Coast, and, in a way, the 
" downtown" for the capital and the rest of Chile, it 
seems more important than its mere population would 
indicate. Its buildings are fairly modern, and al- 
though the newspapers and street signs are in Spanish, 
and Spanish is the language generally spoken, it has 
little of the look of the old Spanish- American town. 

Trolley cars clang through the streets and out to the 
suburbs, shop windows are decorated with toy rail- 
roads and pasteboard landscapes like our department 
stores; lithographs of political candidates are pasted 
on fences and walls. Out toward Vina del Mar 
where the well-to-do live in hedged-in villas, I saw a 
real estate boomer's sign on a hill newly planted with 
pine and eucalyptus trees — " Villa Moderna" he 

138 






s 



m, -i. J i if* . rf -" Tit'?-' 





The roadstead and dry docks at Valparaiso from one of the city's hills. 




Looking past the statue of Admiral Prat toward the landing stage at Val- 
paraiso. 



THE OTHER SAN FRANCISCO 

called his addition, just as he would have called it 
"Ozone Heights" or "Shady crest " in the North. 

Valparaiso is the home of the famous "Mercurio" 
newspaper, now published both there and in Santiago, 
and one of the institutions, almost one of the tradi- 
tions of Chile. It was at Valparaiso, in 1891, that 
soldiers of the U. S. S. Baltimore on shore leave got 
into the fight with Chilian soldiers, which came near 
resulting in a declaration of war. 

The Germans have the largest colony, the Italians 
the next, and there are many Frenchmen; but there 
are some six thousand Englishmen in Valparaiso, and 
in a Latin-American town six thousand blond and 
English-speaking foreigners are very noticeable. Late 
of a winter afternoon in that favorite cafe of the 
Calle Prat, where the bankers and importers' agents 
gather, or passing solid old British names on brazen 
door-plates, and pink -cheeked clerks poring over 
ledgers under green drop-lights, or in the library of 
the Albion Club, with a florid old gentleman in the 
corner reading "Punch," Valparaiso seems indeed 
British. One cannot go far without crossing the trail 
of some Irishman or Briton or Yankee of the hard 
old days — every chapter of Chilian history is sprinkled 
with names, opening on the past like tiny, dusty win- 
dows, through which one just misses being able to see. 

Chile's Washington, as he might be called, was an 
O'Higgins. He led the war for independence in the 
early part of the last century and headed the new 
government during its first few years. El Almirante 

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O'Higgins is the name of the largest battleship in 
Chile's navy to-day. In that navy are the torpedo 
gun-boats Almirante Condell, Almirante Lynch and 
Almirante Simpson — all names that meant something 
in the Chilian-Peruvian war, and if you look back 
over the story of that struggle, which ruined Peru for 
the time and left Chile master as she is to-day of the 
West Coast, you will find plenty like them — Cox, 
Christie, Edwards, Leighton, Macpherson, Rogers 
Smith, Stephens, Thomson, Walker, Warner, Williams, 
Wilson and Wood. 

All officers these, helping to direct ships with such 
names as Blanco Encalada, Chacabuco, and Esmeralda. 
In the Alameda is a statue to William Wheelwright, of 
Newburyport, Mass., who founded the Pacific Steam 
Navigation Company — which plies between Liverpool 
and the West Coast — and built railroads for Chile. 
Here, too, is a statue to Lord Cochrane, the Scotchman 
who commanded Chile's fleet in the war with Spain. 

The navy was one of the revelations of the Chile- 
Peruvian war, and the Chilians have been extremely 
proud of it ever since, and have worked hard to keep 
up its efficiency. Chile's Annapolis is on one of the 
hills overlooking Valparaiso — a modern school, with 
machine shops, guns mounted as though on board 
ship, intricate models of all the ships in the Chil- 
ian navy, big airy class rooms, and an athletic field. 
The cadets are mostly younger than our Annapolis 
men, but judging by their bathroom I should imagine 
that they are put through a somewhat similar Spartan 

140 



THE OTHER SAN FRANCISCO 

training. This bathroom is an extremely narrow 
passage, with showers overhead and on either side. 
The future admirals, so I was told, are marched 
through slowly in single file, so that each is bound to 
get thoroughly soaked before he emerges at the far- 
ther end. 

A young Chilian bank clerk took me through the 
school — the sort of boy who, at home, has little more 
specific knowledge of the navy than that the battle- 
ships look extraordinarily fine anchored in the North 
River. This youth and the friend he brought with him 
examined the models in the glass cases as though they 
were naval architects. They knew what the ships had 
cost, their speed and armament, and they argued 
earnestly about this and that nation's characteristic 
type, and what had been learned from the Russo- 
Japanese war. No less typical, but scarcely as pleas- 
ant, was their contempt for all things Peruvian — 
"and we'll give them another good licking one of 
these days," they grinned, "if they don't look out. 
They've got to get over the idea of making that navy 
of theirs any bigger." It sometimes seems as though 
Chilians took a sort of pride in this kind of bragging, 
as who should say, "Bah! A man doesn't want to be 
too soft and polite; we're a hard, plain lot down here 
— just mere masters of the West Coast, that's all." 

One of the great advantages of life in Valparaiso for 
such youths is the absence of a professional fire depart- 
ment. The glorious privilege of fighting fires is ap- 
propriated by the elite, who organize themselves into 

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clubs, with much the same social functions as the 
Seventh Regiment and Squadron A in New York, wear 
ponderous helmets and march in procession in great 
style whenever they get a chance. One comes upon 
these bomberos practising in the evening, on the Ave- 
nida, for instance, in store clothes and absent-mindedly 
puffing cigarettes, getting a stream on an imaginary 
blaze. In any emergency they perform much the 
same duties as our militia. They threw up barricades 
and made each of the isolated hills on which the 
city is set a separate fort during the Balmaceda rev- 
olution, and they did police and rescue work after the 
late earthquake. 

It is the delightful privilege of the bombero to drop 
his work whenever the alarm is given, dash from his 
office to the blaze, and there man hose-lines, smash 
windows, chop down partitions, and indulge to the 
fullest one of the keenest primordial emotions of man. 
Inasmuch as buildings are seldom more than two or 
three stories in height and built of masonry, there is 
comparatively little danger of a large conflagration, 
and the average of one fire in four days is "just about 
right," as one of my Valparaiso acquaintances ex- 
plained, "to give a man exercise." Their only un- 
happiness, he said, was that there were about fifteen 
hundred firemen in town, and they were getting so 
expert that what one could call a really "good" fire 
was almost unknown. 

If Valparaiso reminds one of a British colony down- 
town, it quite seems so on a fair Sunday morning at 

142 



THE OTHER SAN FRANCISCO 

the country club out beyond Vina del Mar. This is a 
race-course, primarily, but the exiles have zigzagged a 
golf-course across it and laid out grounds for foot-ball 
and cricket, and the day that I was there all of these 
sports were going on, while several willowy young 
girls cantered round the track on absurdly tall horses, 
and their friends strolled the turf and looked on. 
Green hills rose about us, a screen of Lombardy pop- 
lars shut in this oasis, the air was sweet with the smell 
of grass, and the spicy breath of the eucalyptus 
trees. It made one think of pictures in "The Field," 
of Kipling and the Native Born, anything in the world, 
in fact, but the con came images popularly associated 
with Chile. 

Two little girls with unmistakable German faces and 
great bushes of flaxen hair hanging down below their 
shoulders drove by us once in a Shetland pony cart, 
and as we played golf we passed a pale, dark-eyed 
lady, the Chilian wife of an Englishman, playing with 
her little boy and girl on the grass. It was pretty to 
hear her teaching them: "Lawndon abreedge iss af ail- 
ing down," and to see the quaint, formal way in which 
they joined hands and circled round her, chanting 
"R-r-eeng aroun' de r-roosey!" and looking about 
with the bashful consciousness of children speaking a 
piece. 

It was the ingenious device of those who built the 
Valparaiso race-course to construct upon the hillsides 
at the foot of which it lies, in addition to the regular 
grand-stand, a series of terraces bearing little arbors or 

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bowers overlooking the field, like the boxes in a 
theatre. These vine-covered boxes were all empty 
when I was there, the races being at Santiago, but 
several of those in the lower tier had been thrown 
together, and here a club luncheon was served. 

Now, mere food is not, perhaps, a wonderful thing, 
but if you should fly to the planet Mars and the first 
Martian you met offered you a ham sandwich, that 
would be a wonderful thing. In some such light 
this luncheon appeared to me after two months of 
almuerzos in adobe tambos and provincial hotels, and of 
the inevitable cazuela soup — a stout British lunch- 
eon, cold mutton and ham and beef, cheese and 
sardines, and a superlative beefsteak pie. And here, 
too, were the fathers and sons in their knicker- 
bockers and Cardigan jackets, slim young girls just 
in from their ride, talking and laughing their crisp 
English, snuffing up the fresh air. 

And it was one of those droll South American con- 
trasts that with the bare-legged eleven playing Rugby, 
and the office men saying, "Don't know haw we could 
live if we didn't get out here once a week," over behind 
the grand-stand — there by virtue of paying an admis- 
sion which only admitted them where they couldn't be 
seen, yet paid the expenses of the club luncheon, and 
of keeping up the grounds for the canny Britons — were 
the common or garden Chilians. Clerks and men of 
the street, they were — smoking cigarettes, whisking 
their limber canes, talking vehemently and gambling 
with great excitement on the races run at Santiago, 

144 



THE OTHER SAN FRANCISCO 

four hours' express journey away — having their kind 
of a day in the country and their kind of fun. 

When .you are set down on the landing-stage at 
Valparaiso one of the first things that strikes your eye 
is a two-wheeled dray-cart, drawn by two scrubby, 
sweating horses, on the back of one of which the 
driver rides, lashing both with a short whip, like an 
artilleryman galloping into action. This horse is 
hitched by a trace just outside the shafts, and he 
is trained to push with his shoulder when the cart is 
turning away from him, and to swerve off and pull at 
right angles to the shaft when a turn is made in his 
direction. He is as clever as a bronco and hard as 
nails — the sort of animal that will work himself into a 
lather for you from dawn till dark, and if you should 
try, unexpectedly, to pet him on the nose, would 
probably leap over the wagon. There are no drivers 
nor horses like these in Caracas or Bogota or Lima, and 
there is a connotative rasp about the whole outfit 
which is typical of the difference between Chile and its 
northern neighbors. 

It is a rugged, raw country, all mountains and sea- 
coast except the long central valley, and it stretches, 
a long jagged sliver, from the south hemisphere equiv- 
alent of the latitude of Jamaica to the equivalent of 
that of Labrador. The Araucanian Indians, whose 
blood is mixed with that of a considerable portion of 
the population, were a race of fighters — very different 
stock from the tame, phlegmatic Indians of Peru. 
Many of the early Chilian settlers came from the 

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northern part of Spain. All this, a rugged climate 
and an environment none too tender, have made the 
Chilians hardier than their northern neighbors, and 
since the great war it cannot be denied that they 
often have the air of a man spoiling for a fight. 
This swarthy, unhousebroken fellow on the horse 
is the roto — one of the most interesting social units 
in Latin America. He does the country's hard man- 
ual work and will keep at it all day on a bit of 
bread and onion and a gulp of pisco. There are no 
harder workers in the world than these men, so their 
overseers will tell you. When they get their pay they 
go off on a drunk until the money is gone. An English 
engineer told me of the men in his mine, who worked 
half-naked, like animals, below ground. They were 
paid at the end of every three months. He tried to 
get them to put their money in the bank, to save 
enough so that some day they might have a little 
capital and shift to better work. They laughed at 
him. What was the use of working at all, they said, 
unless you could get drunk at the end? 

It is this class, doubtless, which accounts for a good 
part of that river of raw spirits of which Chilian sta- 
tistics give four gallons to each inhabitant per year. In 
his recent "History of South America," Mr. Akers, 
who was correspondent of the " London Times" for 
many years in these parts, states that in 1898, Val- 
paraiso, with its 140,000 inhabitants, had more arrests 
for drunkenness than London itself with its five 
million. I saw no untoward signs of drunkenness in 

146 



THE OTHER SAN FRANCISCO 

Valparaiso nor anywhere else in Chile, but an enormous 
amount of alcohol is consumed — in the nitrate fields 
it is a rather general custom for the oficina to furnish 
its white men with all they want to drink, free — and in 
the provinces lawless crimes are frequent and scarcely 
punished. 

To hear the transplanted Britons — intolerant ob- 
servers, to be sure — one would think that committing 
homicide was an industry and life in Chile scarcely more 
secure than it has been at times in certain streets of 
Chicago. While I was in Valparaiso a man of the 
name of Du Bois had been arrested charged with a 
series of peculiar murders. The papers were crowded 
with details, photographs of the prisoner and his 
alleged accomplices, even cartoons of the chief of 
detectives, surrounded with red-hot irons and other 
instruments of persuasion. The murders had been 
committed some time before, and three men had al- 
ready been tried, convicted, and sentenced to execu- 
tion. I mentioned this fact to an English acquaint- 
ance, as a somewhat sinister commentary on Chilian 
justice. 

"Not at all," he said sweetly. "They can't make a 
mistake, you know; any one of these chaps is bound 
to have committed a murder." 

It is the roto who, of late years, has just begun to 
sit up and take notice. He is not a fool by any means, 
and he knows enough of what the rest of the world is 
doing to feel a vague dissatisfaction. It is he who has 
dug out of the nitrate fields all the wealth which has 

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made his country and the foreigners rich. It was he 
who fought the battles which crushed Peru and made 
Chile master of the West Coast. And he can never be 
an officer; he can never command a ship; he dies as 
he lives, a beast of burden. And so they have strikes 
in Chile, now, quite as modern as ours at home. A few 
years ago there was literal war in the streets of San- 
tiago because the Government tried to raise the import 
tax on Argentine beef; shortly before that a mob of 
steamship strikers fairly terrorized Valparaiso for a 
few hours, and with interesting discrimination — having 
the same grievance against both — burnt the offices of 
the Chilian steamship company and spared those occu- 
pied by a British steamship company — there being 
danger of foreign intervention there. While I was 
in Santiago the printers' and lithographers' strike, 
and other labor troubles of the obreros — the me- 
chanic class above the roto which has its labor 
unions similar to ours — were important parts of each 
day's news. 

This dawning consciousness of power, this creeping 
of industrial problems into a society which was 
originally aristocratic and patriarchal, is one of the 
most interesting social phenomena of Latin America. 
The thought of the good-natured Bolivian Indian — 
who will carry a trunk two miles on the top of his head 
for ten cents — going on strike, or the subdued cholo 
of Peru, or shifty mestizo of the Caribbean organiz- 
ing labor unions, seems amusing or grotesque. This 
roto, however, is a different sort of person. He is not 

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THE OTHER SAN FRANCISCO 

merely poor, or good-natured, or subdued — he is a 
scarred fighter who has survived a hard battle. A 
man who will work all day for a gulp of raw spirits, 
fight like a Spartan, endure cold and fatigue without 
whimpering, rob you or knife you without a qualm, 
and is just begininng to get hold of trade-unionism, 
is interesting. If one were to devise a coat-of-arms for 
Valparaiso — one had almost said Chile — one need go no 
farther than this characteristic sight of the Valparaiso 
streets — the two-wheeled dray-cart, the wiry, straining 
horses, and the swarthy driver lashing them to their 
work. In a way they express the spirit of that raw 
city, and are as appropriate to Chile as the llama and 
palm tree to the seal of Peru. 



149 



CHAPTER X 

SANTIAGO: THE METROPOLIS OF THE ANDES 

Toward dusk, when the lights are beginning to appear 
in the shops and the newsboys are calling out the last 
damp edition of "Las Ultimas Noticias," and the great 
snow-covered wall of the Andes to the east blazes 
in the afterglow, the young men of Santiago gather in 
the neighborhood of the corner of Huerfanos and 
Ahumada streets to watch the young ladies go by. 
They are dapper and very confident young men, com- 
bining in their demeanor the gallantry of their Span- 
ish inheritance with a certain bumptiousness rather 
characteristically Chilian. They stare at those who 
pass — some in mantos, some in French dresses with 
Paris hats and "undulated" hair — and in Spanish 
murmur, half audibly, such observations as, "I like 
the blonde best," or "Give me the little one." And 
as they still retain some of that simplicity which, 
in the interior, causes a stranger to be watched as 
though he were a camel or a calliope — they will stare 
even at the gringo, comment on the cut of his clothes 
or facetiously compare his blunt walking-boots with 
their long, thin ones. They are rather irritating 
sometimes, these Huerfanos-corner young men, es- 

150 



SANTIAGO 

pecially the young officers in their smart German uni- 
forms, and one dreams of home and a Broadway 
policeman marching down upon them leisurely with a 
night-stick and fanning them away. 

But the young women do not mind it at all; indeed, 
if they did not rather like it they probably would not 
so arrange their shopping that, two by two, from the 
Plaza down past the Hotel Oddo, round the corner and 
back again, they must so often pass this way. And 
you will not make yourself at all popular by sympathiz- 
ing, for they would only laugh and say: "Oh, they're 
all right. That's only their way of beginning. They're 
quite sensible and nice when you come to know them." 
There are ways and ways, and in South America a girl 
who may not receive a formal call from a man without 
having her mother and half the family in the room at 
the same time may blandly listen to repartee which 
would make our maidens gasp for breath. One night 
at the opera in Santiago a somewhat distinguished per- 
sonage looked in for a moment at the box where I 
happened to be. Had you called upon him that after- 
noon he would have expected you to come in top-hat 
and frock-coat and discuss affairs of state with punc- 
tilious dignity, yet the first casual remark this middle- 
aged statesman made after bowing to the young ladies 
in the party was to tell the older he couldn't wait any 
longer, and she would have to marry him at once. 
"Or" — and he nodded toward the other sister — "be 
my sister-in-law." The young girl smiled lazily and 
continued fanning herself. A moment later, when he 

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was reminded of the man who was about to visit Japan 
and, on being asked if he intended to take his wife with 
him, replied, "Do you carry a sandwich in your pocket 
when you go to the Lord Mayor's banquet?" she still 
smiled and fanned lazily on. 

They are sometimes very beautiful, these Chilian 
women, with the same pale oval faces and velvety dark 
eyes of their cousins of Lima, but, as a rule, with more 
vigor and vitality. Something in their inheritance, 
perhaps, more likely, the colder climate seems to have 
cooled a little the vivacity which comes out in the 
tropic north; indeed, the beauties of which they are 
proudest are tall, slow-moving creatures, vigorously 
shaped, but marble-pale and a little melancholy. At 
this time of day, when the carriages are rolling 
about to diplomatic teas or waiting outside some shop 
which has received a consignment of dress goods by 
the last steamer, you see them in European clothes. 
The Chilians will tell you that, as July is mid-winter 
with them, they get Paris styles six months before we 
do in the States ; by the same token, English-speaking 
exiles tell you that the Chilians are always, at least 
six months late. Which are right it is not for a mere 
male to say — the result is very satisfactory, at any 
rate. Most women — and in the morning even the 
Europeanized ones — wear the manto, that graceful 
euphemism which shields the poor and disarms the 
vain, hides bad taste and clumsy waists, and, wrapped 
round the head and nipped in in some marvellous 
fashion at the nape of the neck, envelops all femininity 

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SANTIAGO 

in gracefulness and mystery. Some of these mantos 
are of the sheerest cashmere, and their beneficent office 
is vividly revealed once in a while when the drooping, 
slender mask comes between one's self and the light. 

It is at dusk, particularly if the band is playing, or 
if it is Sunday, that the promenade begins round the 
Plaza, a block away from Huerfanos and Ahumada — 
a row of spectators on the inside benches, on the out- 
side young idlers and officers two or three deep; be- 
tween two shuffling concentric circles, in one of which 
are the wicked and predatory men, in the other, the 
shrinking senoritas, two by two, or hanging on the arm 
of a protector. Every man who can sport a top-hat 
and a pair of saffron gloves, if it is Sunday, all of the 
women, except the very austere ones, gather here and 
circle round in that armed neutrality of the sexes which 
is the tradition of their blood. 

At this hour, when the unearthly light from the 
Andes, which here climb up to Aconcagua's twenty- 
four thousand feet, has not yet quite faded away to 
darkness and the city lamps; when the newsboys are 
calling the papers, and the news from the great world 
to the other side of the earth is still news; when the 
men are flocking into the Union Club and the Brazil 
coffee-house and the sidewalks are full Of shoppers and 
the cool mountain air smells of violets and vague per- 
fumes and the scent of roasting coffee, this Huerfanos 
corner is a very pleasant place. Within a stone's 
throw, one might say, is all of Chile; those who rule 
and those who own; the representatives of foreign 

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governments, the newspapers, the clubs, theatre, opera. 
You can look up one street to Santa Lucia, that hang- 
ing garden of which the city is so proud, and up another 
to the long Alameda, with its fountains and statues and 
trees and trophies of the war. In a few hours, a block 
or two away, the carriages will be clattering up for 
"II Trovatore" or "La Boheme." It is a cheerful 
little corner, the heart of this raw, bumptious, unlovely 
country — the flower whose roots lie in the baking 
nitrate deserts, hundreds of miles northward, from 
which four-fifths of the nation's revenues come. 

Santiago has been called the City of the Hundred 
Families, not because an acute social censor might not 
double the number or cut that number in two, but 
because government in Chile is even more a family 
affair, perhaps, than in any other country of South 
America, and because Santiago is the capital. After 
its separation from Spain and preceding the great war 
with Peru, there were four presidential dynasties, so 
to speak, of ten years each, each president selecting 
his successor and seeing him put in office, regularly 
and in good order. Forty years of orderly government 
was rather a wonderful thing for South America and 
during it the rugged little country made money and 
built its navy and got ready to win the struggle with 
Peru. Since then, as the spread of commercialism and 
modern practicality has tended to weaken the sway of 
the old landed aristocracy, there has been a more or 
less open opposition between the Families — that is to 
say, the Senate and Chamber of Deputies, and the 

154 



SANTIAGO 

executive which consists of the President and his 
ministers. Chilian government is of the extreme par- 
liamentary pattern, and the families have rarely hesi- 
tated to compel a dissolution of the President's cabinet 
whenever his and their policies did not agree. In 
1889, in President Balmaceda, a man of culture and of 
an ambition for his country perhaps ahead of his time, 
they found one who would not yield to them. Revolu- 
tion followed, many lives were wasted, and millions of 
dollars' worth of property destroyed, and the Balma- 
cedists lost. Balmaceda, who was a proud and very 
sensitive man, committed suicide ; but there is a Balma- 
cedist party in Chilian politics to-day. And although 
Santiago is a city of a Few Families still, in a way, one 
of the very live questions in the Chile of to-day — with its 
foreign promoters, its labor-unions, night-schools, incip- 
ient socialism, and industrial strikes — is how long the 
country will be ruled by an oligarchy of jealous fami- 
lies, and when these scattered units will be absorbed 
into political parties, each with its well-defined policy, 
which, when it gets in power, it can hope to carry out. 
Intimate discussion of such questions I must leave to 
the erudite gentlemen who are at this instant writing 
constitutional histories of South America, and having 
thus hinted at the general social and material outlines 
of Santiago, return to the more immediate subject of 
these chapters, and what Mr. Barrett Wendell would 
call the glittering phantasmagoria of the outside world. 
Santiago has about four hundred thousand people, 
or about one-tenth of the population of Chile. It lies 

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in the wide central valley of this long sliver of a coun- 
try, some two thousand feet climb from the coast and 
Valparaiso, with the Andes hanging like a beautiful 
drop-curtain at the eastern end of every street. It has 
many newspapers, the best quite as good as those of 
cities of similar size at home, a large university, many 
academies and schools, parks, and an art museum. 
Its citizens ride in trolley-cars, go to the theatre and 
opera and horse-races, and talk to one another and 
Valparaiso over the telephone. There is at least one 
hotel well-kept and comfortable, and equal to what 
one would find in an average city of similar size in 
Europe. In short, it is a city, with a city's material 
obviousnesses. Without gaping at these in detail, it is 
perhaps sufficient to say that, if the journey down the 
West Coast and across to Argentina were represented 
by a sort of isothermal line, climbing up and down the 
various latitudes of modernity, somewhat after the 
manner of those charts with which nurses record the 
temperatures of fever patients, it would swing upward 
in a fairly consistent curve from the comic-opera 
Caribbean, through Peru and Lima, with its mixture of 
antiquity and modern bricabracqueria, through Chile, 
hungrily scraping easy riches from the nitrate fields, 
to Buenos Aires, and about midway on this line you 
could mark a dot for the city of Santiago. 

What manner of life is flowing by here, thirty-three 
degrees below the line, in this ninetieth year of Chilian 
independence? I know of no better way to glimpse, 
at least, a cross-section of it than by glancing through 

156 




Nitrate vats at an "oficina" in the north of Chile. 
From nitrates comes most of Chile's income. 




The railroad station at Santiago. 
These horse-cars have long since been replaced with electric trolleys. 



SANTIAGO 

these damp, newly made mirrors of the passing stream, 
otherwise known as afternoon papers. There are a 
great many of them here in Santiago, and some very 
good ones, and the North American, unaccustomed to 
cities which are their countries in a sense that none of 
our separate towns begins to be, wonders who can 
read and support all of them. There is "El Mercurio," 
which everybody has heard of, and its afternoon edi- 
tion, "Las Ultimas Noticias"; "La Lei," "El Ferro- 
carril," "El Chileno," "La Patria," "El Impartial," 
"La Reforma," "El Porvenir," "El Diario Popular," 
"El Diario Ilustrado"; there may be others, but 
these, at least, I gathered up one evening from the* old 
cholo newswoman who stood on the steps of the post- 
office. So, suppose one surprises the first newsboy who 
approaches Huerfanos corner by buying out half his 
stock, and then crossing the street to the Brazilian 
coffee-house, where men gather at this hour, just as 
they do after the offices close in the cafes at home, and 
where for a few cents you can get a plate of little 
biscuits, and coffee, that somehow never tastes nor 
smells quite the same the other side of the tropics, and 
cast an eye over the news. Here, first thing, on the 
front page of "Las Ultimas Noticias," in scare type 
that cannot be escaped, is an 

AVISO AL PUBLICO I! 

The Printing, Lithographing and Binding Establishments of 
Santiago have been obliged to close their doors, owing to the ex- 
cessive 'pretensions of their employees following an increase in the 
hours of work which was unanimously adopted by the proprietors. 

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Close by, the Juventud Conservadora publicly regrets, 
in red ink, that because of the strike and the impos- 
sibility of having invitations printed, its banquet must 
be postponed for a week. Farther over the employers 
print a long statement, phrased in the cold and lucid 
words which employers are wont to use, amid which 
stares our own word " local" alongside "Federation 
Grafica Arturo Prat, 485." Here, then, in our City of 
Families, in a country founded by Spain and saturated 
with patriarchal traditions, comes the trade-union and 
strikes, or huelgas, as they would say. The young 
British bank-clerk at the next table will tell you that 
a year or two ago these very streets were literal battle- 
grounds for a day or two because the government tried 
to raise the import tax on Argentine beef. There were 
only a few soldiers at the barracks when the mob rose, 
"and if," says he, "we hadn't got together and kept 
them from breaking in and getting the guns, nobody 
knows what might have happened. The soldiers came, 
though. You could hear 'em pop-pop-popping all 
night in the streets. They shot three hundred that 
one night! The mob tried to break into the 'Mer- 
curio' building, and the men inside fired one volley 
out of the windows and killed seven." 

Here, farther on, are echoes of that restless, get-rich- 
quick commercialism of present-day Chile — columns of 
advertisements of banks, with British, German, Span- 
ish names; of nitrate companies and promotion 
schemes that remind one of mining advertisements in 
our Western papers. Yet with it all, one gets a feeling 

• 158 



SANTIAGO 

of being set back in the fifties or sixties, of seeing some- 
thing that is perhaps a partial duplication of what we in 
North America were a few generations ago. In spirit 
the country is still, to a great extent, colonial; things still 
date to and from mail-day; there is a quaint antique 
solemnity in the advertisements of steamship sailings: 
"On such and such a date the Pacific Steam Naviga- 
tion Company's steamship Sorata, 7,000 tons (Captain 
Hobson), carrying mails for Europe, will sail, touching 
at Coronal or Lota, Punta Arenas, Montevideo, Santos, 
Rio de Janeiro, etc., to Liverpool." Some of the ships 
go straight over to Australia, where much of Chile's 
coal comes from; some to New Zealand, by way of 
Cape Town; and many stop at the Falklands, eastward 
bound, to take on cargoes of wool. 

In foreign news I suppose we are less interested, yet 
here are two or three pages of cable despatches in "El 
Mercurio" — twice as much, so that most hopeful of 
Pan- Americans, Mr. Charles Pepper, avers in his book 
on the West Coast, as is printed by any North American 
paper in a city of similar size. As for commercial and 
other exiles — here are the Alliance Francaise and the 
Deutscher Verein announcing approaching festivities; 
the English Club, "by virtue of the power vested in 
them at the General Meeting of the Provisional Com- 
mittee, have decided that," etc., etc. Viola Social, 
under which Latin-iVmerican editors have a quaint 
habit of printing obituaries and notices of funerals, 
here includes a wedding, a baile or two; the banquet of 
the Colombians, last evening, in honor of the anni- 

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versary of their independence — caviar glace, creme reine 
Margot, filet de Corbine a la Cancale (the corbina is a fish 
much esteemed on the West Coast), zephyrs defoies gras 
en bellevue, Perdreaux a la bohemienne, Haul Sauterne, 
1890, Chateau de Bouscaut, '80, etc., etc.; a dinner for 
poor children and their mothers — another echo of 
Chile's growing social consciousness — given by certain 
distinguidas senoras y senoritas. On the front page of 
"El Diario Ilustrado" are their photographs, the dis- 
tinguished matrons and misses, and the dusky little 
cholo children looking over their soup-bowls out of dark, 
sad eyes. 

The muck-rake is still but mildly wielded in these 
paternal countries, yet at least in the report of yester- 
day's session of the congress, one finds Deputy Gutier- 
rez attacking the government's management of the 
state railroad, and asserting that on a certain division 
out of three hundred and thirty-seven locomotives 
there were seventy-four distinct types! The editor 
himself is constrained to admit that the Electric Trac- 
tion Company is giving abominable service. And from 
Antofagasta, up in the nitrate country, a correspond- 
ent complains that murders and hold-ups are frequent 
and that the police are becoming more indifferent 
every day. 

Rates of exchange, activity of the stock-market, 
movements of Argentine beef — at the opera last night 
"La Tosca." "In spite of the bitter attacks on Vic- 
torien Sardou," observes the reviewer, "by the more 
enlightened critics, this old man of the theatre survives, 

160 



SANTIAGO 

undaunted, and his dramas are presented all over the 
world. The unfortunate thing is that a great many 
who have not the good taste to rise superior to merely- 
popular clamor — Puccini, Mascagni, and others — are 
led to take their librettos from the plays of Sardou. 
And the result is, because of the false theatrical- 
ism. . . ." 

As for the out-of-doors, there is football; a fond 
correspondent, writing in the old Latin-American or 
Caribbean manner, explains, under the title, "Lite- 
ratura y Sport," and with examples of the fresh-air 
regimen practised by Edmund Harcourt, Jacques 
Richepin, Henry Bataille, and Marcel Prevost, how, 
of all those who need physical exercise, literary men 
need it most, "in order to compensate, by a propor- 
tionate amount of bodily waste, the mental combustion 
caused by the profession of literature"; and here are 
the entries and weights, in kilos, of course, for the 
races to-morrow — Espartana, Miss Polly, Makaroff, 
King of Hearts, Pierre-qui-rire, Nutmeg, Guerrillero, 
and columns of racing gossip in Spanish signed "Sport- 
ing Boy." 

Of these newspapers "El Mercurio" is the most 
widely read, and it has long been one of the show 
things of Chile. It was founded in Valparaiso in 1827 
and in Santiago in 1900, and the afternoon edition, 
"Las Ultimas Noticias" or "The Latest News"— was 
started in 1904. The two papers are published simul- 
taneously, the news columns somewhat different, the 
editorials the same. "El Mercurio," like its larger 

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rival, "La Prensa," of Buenos Aires, is the pet child 
of a wealthy family, which spares no expense not only 
to keep abreast of the times, but to give its whole 
establishment something* of the dignity of a national 
institution. The Valparaiso editorial offices are more 
like a club than an ordinary North American news- 
paper office, the file-room is a sort of Gothic chapel, 
and the mighty redactor and his assistant sit in carved 
oaken chairs like a cabinet minister and his secretary. 
The Santiago building is very much after the manner 
of the "New York Herald" building in New York, 
only rather more ambitious. It has an office where 
the public may consult files; a grill-room, in which 
tea is served free to reporters, and other food at a 
nominal price, and there are semi-public lecture and 
concert rooms. "El Mercurio" also publishes an 
illustrated weekly, "Zigzag," which circulates all over 
southern South America, and occupies a position 
about midway between such illustrated supplements 
as are issued with our Saturday "Globe" and "Mail 
and Express," and such a paper as "Collier's." Here 
you will always find photographs of the baile or wed- 
ding or dinner of the week — for South Americans 
take an insatiable delight in seeing pictures of their 
social doings in the papers — gossip of the races and 
theatres, poems, translations, and short stories after 
the fashion of French or Italian weeklies, scraps of the 
world's news, ranging from an account of the latest 
nihilistic attack or air-ship flight to photographs of 
English musical comedy beauties or of some member 

162 



SANTIAGO 

of our pagan aristocracy with a prize bull-terrier in 
her lap. "Zigzag" has a three-color cover, and a 
North American superintendent to look after its press- 
work. Sometimes it is quite grown up, as, for instance, 
in a series of cartoons published last summer depicting 
the adventures of a German sociologist come* to study 
the barbarous phenomena of Chile. The misadven- 
tures of this gentleman and his dachshund, and his 
droll misinterpretation of the humors of a Chilian po- 
litical campaign, were presented with much the self- 
sufficient good-humor that " Punch" might tell of the 
adventures of a Frenchman in London. At other 
times it becomes droll and almost Caribbean, as in a 
number I recently saw, in which the arrival of Mr. 
Frank Brown's circus in Santiago was chronicled, and 
it was solemnly explained that the Chilian's partiality 
to elephants was due to something mighty and martial 
in the national temperament to which these vast 
pachyderms specially appealed. 

There were many things for "El Mercurio" to be 
proud of, but that which they pointed out with the 
greatest enthusiasm, perhaps, and which was interest- 
ing because it suggested so much that didn't exist in 
the tropical neighborhoods to the north, was a sign on 
a door that read " Vida al aire libre." It was the head- 
quarters of a brand-new department, and of the gentle- 
man who signed himself "Sporting Boy," and wrote 
about life out of doors. Life out of doors in the tropics 
is a serious thing, and not always synonymous with 
sport; and, although the English-speaking folk keep up 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

their tennis and sometimes their polo wherever they 
are, and you will find South American boys playing 
football in almost every town of any size, there is some- 
thing strange and vaguely pathetic about such exotic 
sport, separated from the cool air and fresh turf with 
which it seems to belong. Here in Chile, however, the 
temperate zone has come again: a workable atmosphere 
and the blessed green grass, and with it, too, naturally, 
and with all these northern exiles and Saxons native- 
born, the northern love for sport. Almost every day 
Mr. Sporting Boy discoursed learnedly on "El turf 
frances, its development and progress," the "Progreso 
del turf Chileno," gave "a last word about el match 
intercity" or printed a letter from some "distinguido y 
antiguo footballista." 

"Sefior Sporting Boy, Mi estimado amigo," the letter 
would begin. "That which is past is past. We have 
suffered, in truth, a shameful defeat; yet what we are 
to blame for we ought perhaps to accept silently. 
There are, however, undoubtedly certain things which 
might well be brought to the attention of the honorable 
directorate of the Association de Football de San- 
tiago." What should have been, it seems, a great 
intercity match "became merely a mere chance for the 
portenos (or 'people of the gate/ as the Valparaisans 
are called) to give us on our own grounds a proof of 
their superior discipline and organization." The San- 
tiago team had been well trained. The selection of 
players made by its captain, Don Guillermo del Canto, 
was magnificent. The public were confident. The 

164 



. 



SANTIAGO 

great day dawned propitiously. But at the last mo- 
ment it appeared that one player was missing ! The pub- 
lic protested, the captain searched. The portenos — em- 
barrassing thought — "observed this lack of discipline. 
They had preferred to leave behind such good players 
as Morrison and Mackenzie merely because they had 
missed one day's practice at Vina del Mar! The game 
began, but what had happened? Why were Voiles, 
Rogers, Hamel, etc., who, two days before, had spoken 
gayly of the intercity as of a coming victory, not now 
the same? The cause seemed inexplicable. It was 
this. The substituted goal-keeper did not guarantee 
security. There was weakness in that most responsible 
position, in that point de transcendental importancia en 
la defensia de un team. The result — but why heap up 
humiliation? To all the world now it is told, only too 
eloquently, in the score." 

The Chilians are horsemen, too, and great breeders 
of horses — even the Peruvians import their best stock 
from their rivals, and in the Paseo at Lima they are 
Chilian coach-horses which drag the victorias round 
and round the statue of Bolognesi. Bull-fighting 
having been abolished in Chile, the races, in a way, 
take its place, and all the town flocks to the "Club 
Hippico" on Sunday afternoon. It is a pretty place, 
with the snow-capped Cordilleras in the distance and 
the paddock and club enclosure with its refreshment 
tables and trees — larger than the little course at Lima, 
more polite and winsome than the big Jockey Club of 
Buenos Aires. Here, of a Sunday afternoon during 

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the season, the "higgy-liffy" of the little capital dis- 
plays itself, both in its role of exemplar of the Few 
Families and in that less conscious but no less enter- 
taining provincialism which a newly arrived member 
of the diplomatic corps doubtless had in mind when, 
on my asking her about her impressions of Chilian 
society, she said that they seemed to do nothing but 
eat and get their pictures taken. The club enclosure 
has all the quiet intimacy of a garden-party. The 
women wear their prettiest clothes, the men are rigor- 
ously arrayed in frock-coats and top-hats. They are 
very punctilious about this, and on the afternoon I 
was there were much less excited over the races than 
over the fact that a lone gringo, who, doubtless assum- 
ing that the balmy day and the sporting surroundings 
justified his behaving as though it were July at home 
instead of south of the tropics, had committed the 
social crime of wearing a straw hat. Men's jaws 
dropped as they beheld him, and stately beauties, into 
whose houses a social outsider could not have broken 
with an axe, stared, pointed, and giggled like shop- 
girls. 

There is less of this punctiliousness at the opera; 
even in parterre boxes grocer-like papas in business 
suits may occasionally be observed behind their 
blooming daughters. The daughters are likely to be 
much younger than the glittering nymphs who adorn 
our opera boxes at home, and just a little awkward 
and conscious of their clothes. But the beautiful ones 
are really beautiful — tall and dark and pale, with a 

166 






SANTIAGO 

certain vague melancholy, as though, perhaps, they 
were thinking of the great world the other side of the 
tropics, down below the big shoulder of the earth from 
which they were fated to bloom and blush unseen. 
German opera is not admired, but the government 
subsidizes very fair Italian companies who come out 
each winter and sing "Trovatore" and "Cavalleria 
Rusticana" and "Tosca" and the rest. No pale in- 
tellectuals to frown at the "Bravos" here or shiver at 
the stretching of a top note ! The audience shrieks and 
thunders, hisses itself into silence, only to break forth 
again in applause. The first tenor bows and bows, 
steps clear out of his part and down to the footlights, 
finally, with a glance at the orchestra leader as who 
should say "They will have it — just watch me tear it 
off now!" Up goes his great chest as the high note 
approaches, the sweat rolls down the grease-paint in 
the glare of the footlights, the air is fairly trembling 
with pent-up enthusiasm. The note is taken — held 
— on — on where does the man's breath come from? — 
brought down at last into a swoop, smothered in an 
avalanche of applause. It's some fun being a tenor 
here. 

Between the acts the young men drift down to the 
orchestra-rail to sweep the house with their glasses 
and discuss its attractions. After the performance 
they crowd in the foyer like "stags" at a cotillion to 
watch the senoritas go by, and between times there is a 
vast amount of that solemn wireless telegraphy of 
which a society so rigidly chaperoned must needs be 

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fond. There was a young woman in a box across from 
us ; a tall, vigorous beauty, in unrelieved black, who 
gazed out across the orchestra like a marble statue. 
The gossip was that she was really in earnest, and the 
young legation secretary was only playing, and so 
every eye was on him when he sauntered down to his 
orchestra seat alone after the overture was nearly done. 
He was a very tall and gloomily languid young man, 
and knowing that everybody was watching him and 
why, and having down very fine that mixture of cold 
elegance and ennui, which is considered the last word 
in Buenos Aires, he only made himself look more 
bored than ever. He would raise his eyelids or a 
hand with the calculated slowness of a figure moved 
by clock-work. Presently — and this was what every- 
one was waiting for — he turned slowly until his gaze 
met that of the lady in the box and bowed. It was as 
if he said a glance from her would make him but clay 
beneath her feet and yet he was so aweary that not 
even this could make him smile. The statue vouch- 
safed him a bow only a shade less cold and sad than his. 
Ever and anon through the evening he would slowly 
turn, lift his stricken gaze to the box, rest it there with 
that look of longing unutterable, and as slowly turn it 
back again. This long-distance coquetry may go on 
for months, although the principals may have never 
met. It is what the Chilians call pololear, .from the 
name of a kind of native bee which makes a prolonged 
buzzing sound. 
Going to the theatre in Santiago generally means, 

168 



SANTIAGO 

as it does in Lima, looking in for a zarzuela or two 
some time during the evening. These zarzuelas are one- 
act pieces, most of which, including the companies who 
play them and the Castilian lisp they bring with them, 
come over from Spain. Three or four are generally 
put on in one evening, the house being cleared — except 
of those who have reserved seats for more than one 
"turn" or tanda — between each piece. If you have 
dined late you can drop in for the second one, which 
begins about half-past nine generally, and if you have 
been somewhere else during the evening you can often 
catch the last one, which starts about eleven o'clock. 
The arrangement is somewhat similar to what we 
should have in our music-halls were tickets sold at ten 
or fifteen cents for each separate "turn" instead of 
for an evening, and it is informal, convenient, and 
economical. Some of the zarzuelas are musical, some 
melodramatic, but commonlythey lean to parody and 
eccentric comedy. There was one in Santiago called 
"Popular Books." The stage was set as a Madrid 
street with a book-stall in the centre. A simple cus- 
tomer was about to start a library. The bookseller 
described one classic after another, in the midst of each 
of which explanations the principal characters of the 
book appeared from the wings* and did a short sketch, 
burlesquing* the main points of the story. There was 
a scene between Camille and Armand, for instance, at 
the end of which the Lady of the Camellias stalked off 
the stage, leaving her blonde wig in her lover's hands, 
the latter in an ecstasy of repentance, eyes closed, 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

thinking that his fingers still rested on her head in 
fond benediction. The audiences are very alert, and 
will come back in a flash if they suspect for an instant 
that the people on the stage are trifling with them. 
That same evening at Santiago there was one heart- 
wrenching piece, at the climax of which the aged father 
forgave his erring daughter and clasped her in his arms. 
The actress who endeavored to depict this maiden was 
an uncommonly cheerful and well-developed lady of 
perhaps 175 pounds, and when Simon, the heart-broken 
old father, gathered her to himself with a gesture more 
emphatic, perhaps, than paternal, and buried his head 
in her hair on the side away from the audience, the 
simulation of grief was too much for the suspicious 
Iberian temperament, and a voice shrilled down from 
the gallery, "What's Simon saying?" — &Que dice 
Simon f 

The most interesting performance I saw in Santiago, 
however, was not in a theatre but in a school-house, in 
the morning instead of by lamplight, with school-girls 
for actresses and an audience of three. It was at a 
normal school where a number of very earnest young 
Chilian women were learning how to teach. Girls from 
the poorer families of the neighborhood came by day, 
just as our children go to a public grammar-school; 
in the evening the young teachers had classes for boys 
and men of the obrero, or mechanic class, and between 
times they studied books on pedagogy. It would have 
been difficult among them not to recover speedily from 
whatever of the gringo's complacency survived at 

170 



SANTIAGO 

thirty-three degrees below the line. All spoke English 
more or less, the principal, a girl of perhaps twenty- 
five, fluently. One of the first questions she asked was 
the name of the critical magazine which would best 
keep her informed about intellectual matters in North 
America. "The Ladies' Home Journal" was the only 
one of our magazines which came to the school. A 
class in English was reciting — reading an English fable 
about the wicked condor and the poor little hare, and 
the use the latter had made of his legs. "Pooair-r- 
aleetle hare-r-re" — they would read in extreme em- 
barrassment, for some were quite grown up — "what 
were you adoing weeth your lace?" It may be em- 
barrassing, but that is the way they learn English 
down there, and the way our spoiled undergraduates 
generally do not learn the languages — by talking them; 
so that young men who have never been outside 
the little interior town in which the seven-leagued 
gringo meets them, can chat with him quite fluently in 
his own tongue. After classes were dismissed for the 
noon recess the pupils hurried into bloomers and 
flannel waists, and under the leadership of a young 
woman with that austere springiness which, except in 
gymnasium instructors, is ne'er seen on sea or land, 
drilled with dumb-bells and parallel bars. Then they 
lined up and sang their cancion national, and after that 
in. English, "America," which was a polite attention 
no Chilian would ever have received in the United 
States. Then they drew a long breath, smiled up into 
the gallery where we stood, and sang quite correctly 

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and with tremendous feeling, "My Old Kentucky 
Home." It may be that every roomful of South Amer- 
ican school-girls could have done this that summer, but 
Mr. Root was then a full month's journey distant from 
Santiago, and all I could do was to put myself in the 
place of a Chilian who should drop into a New York 
school by chance and have the pupils promptly stand 
up and sing his national anthem and follow that with 
some ancient Chilian popular song, and I do not hesitate 
to say that at least one of their audience was con- 
siderably stirred. 

Whatever may be said of the provincial and primary 
schools — generally weak in Latin- America — here in the 
capital the well-to-do take care of their own. Sarmi- 
ento, the great educator of the Argentine, and its 
president from 1868 to 1874, a friend of our Horace 
Mann and Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, and of various 
enlightened Europeans of his time, spent some of his 
early life in Chile while revolutions were disturbing his 
native province of San Juan. Education was the great 
interest of his life, and the work which was to do so 
much for Argentina began in Santiago, during this 
voluntary exile, some twenty-five years before. To- 
day, in Santiago, in addition to the public primary 
schools, there is the State University, with 1,700 stu- 
dents; the Catholic University; the National Institute, 
a secondary school with 1,168 pupils; and various 
others of a more or less private sort. Santiago 
College, which takes girls at the kindergarten age and 
graduates them eleven years later from a liberal arts 

172 



SANTIAGO 

course, the senior year of which includes "English Lit- 
erature and Rhetoric, Spanish Literature, Geometry, 
Astronomy, Geography, Sociology, History of Art, 
English Elocution, Nature Talks and Gymnasium 
Work," looks, as one walks through it, like any well- 
conducted girls' boarding-school at home. Classes 
were over for the day when I was there, but in the 
gymnasium four little primary girls were imitating 
with a solemnity and abandon, which these little 
Latins take to like ducks to water; the gestures of the 
elocution teacher, who waved his arms in front of 
them. There is nothing they like better. They throw 
all their romantic little souls into these sonorous periods 
that fairly speak themselves, until they remind one 
less of our own children " speaking pieces" than little 
voix d'or Bernhardts intoning the lines of "Phedre." 
There is a boys' school of somewhat the same class, 
called the "Institute* Ingles." It was founded in the 
late seventies by Presbyterians and now has a Prince- 
ton man for principal, while most of the teachers are 
American. There were some three hundred pupils 
here, about a score of whom were Bolivians. Their 
school paper, "The Southern Cross," took one back at 
a glance to the school papers of home. 

"Back at the I. L," began its column of "Locals and 
Personals," in the time-honored manner. 

"Glad to see you. 

"Hope you had a good vacation. 

"Gustavo Valengula, brother of Julio, has returned 
after two years' absence. 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

"The Boys are practising early this year for the 
field meet. 

"The Thunder Football Team has kindly given us 
permission to use their ground in the Quinta Normal. 

"The Andean Literary Society has begun its year's 
work. 

"A challenge was sent to the Captain of the Am- 
mategui Football Club by the Institute, and an exciting 
game was played, the final score being four goals to 
two in favor of Ammategui. 

"Line up: Instituto — Goal, Auget; Backs, Zamora, 
Robinson (Capt.); Half-backs, Mena, Vallejos, Lira. 
Forwards, Vergara, Raiteri, Carabantes, Munoz, Qui- 
roga, etc., etc." Change a name or two and it might 
be the Medford "Tiger" or the Cherryville High School 
"Owl." 

This paper had a Spanish and an English editor, and 
part was printed in one language and part in the other. 
There was a translation from "The Literary Digest," 
and from a "North American Review" article on "Is 
Literature Destroyed by Journalism?"; an article on 
scholarships in the schools of the United States and — 
typical example of the fond faith of Latin America — a 
translation of the "liberty or death" speech of Patrick 
Henry. Boys in school nowadays, I suppose, are 
discriminating and understand that the Patrick 
Henry kind of thing is antique rhetoric, not to be taken 
very seriously. They still like that kind of rhetoric 
down there — "Senor Presidente: es natural en el hombre 
alimentar las ilusiones de la esperanza" — boom out the 

174 



SANTIAGO 

familiar words in the rolling Castilian; "Is life so dear" 
— "Es la vida tan cava 6 la paz tan dulce parasercom- 
prada al precio de la libertad y la esclavitud f Impedidlo, 
Dios Todopoderoso!" They have not read, you see, the 
muck-raking magazines. They do not know of our 
various frenzied, shamed, and tainted things. They 
still believe in us. 

The Chilians have long been pleased to consider 
themselves the sturdiest people of South America. 
Before the war with Peru this was probably true, and 
in a lesser degree it is true to-day. The victory and 
the the nitrate have not been an unmixed good. The 
get-rich possibilities of nitrates have spoiled them 
somewhat for slow, hard work and provided temptations 
for " graft." Nitrates have built up the army and 
navy and provided free schools. But those who get 
this free education are young men who could per- 
fectly well afford to pay for it themselves. The Chile 
of to-day is a Chile of the second generation, less sim- 
ple, less inclined to get out and hustle. I do not mean 
that parasitism begins to be an accomplished fact, nor 
that agriculture and mining and manufacturing will 
not gradually grow and hold up the industrial struct- 
ure when the bottom has dropped out of the more 
spectacular nitrates, as, some time or other, of course 
it must. But it is a tendency, and this and the 
growing power of the roto and obrero classes, and the 
beginning of trades-unions and night-schools and strikes 
— all this very modern unrest and agitation make 
Chile interesting. One gets beyond exotic charm and 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

among people who are thinking and working and won- 
dering why. 

Here, for instance, close to Mr. Sporting Boy's talk 
on football, under the heading, "Una Costumbre Anti- 
ipatriotica" is a typical echo of that self-analysis, un- 
rest, and criticism which one meets daily in newspapers 
and talking with Chilians. Pellegrini, one of the ex- 
presidents of Argentina, has just died, and the leader 
writer, referring to the tributes to his memory in Buenos 
Aires, applauds the way in which the Argentines stand 
up for their own. 

"It is otherwise," says he, "in Chile. Ask any of the 
strangers who visit us. The first impulse of a Chilian 
of good position, in speaking of Chile, is to say that it is 
badly governed, its cities scarcely habitable, public men 
dishonest, society corrupt, that it exhibits all that 
which is worst on this earth below. We do not exag- 
gerate. It is a daily spectacle in our most aristocratic 
clubs. Whenever a new diplomat arrives, a minister 
or secretary of legation, or merely a casual traveller, 
you will hear some such conversation as this: 

"'You are pleased with Santiago?' 

"'Absolutely. Santiago is a most agreeable place. 
I am delighted with Chile. I am very anxious to know 
more about the country. I find Chilian society charm- 
ing.' 

"'You are saying that out of pure gallantry and as 
a good diplomat. It is really a wretched time to see 
the country. Everything is disorganized.' 

"'Oh, you are merely passing through one of those 

176 



SANTIAGO 

crises that come with progress. That has occurred to 
many countries.' 

"'No; we have no illusions. The government is 
enough to make one ashamed. And Congress — and the 
Santiago streets — and the railroads — how shameful 
to have such a creature in as Minister of Foreign 
Affairs " 

"'Why, it seems to me that Mr. So-and-So is a very 
able statesman.' 

"'No, no. Only a rascal — a bandit — a fool.' 

"Whoever has visited the Argentine Republic knows 
that these things are ordered differently there. Before 
strangers the Argentinean " 

One day a bundle of home newspapers dropped into 
Santiago — midsummer newspapers full of stories of 
baseball games, sunstrokes, ice-famines, chowder- 
parties, politics, big crops, and all the homely, humor- 
ous gossip from police courts and country towns. It 
would be difficult to explain to anyone who has not 
at one time or another become temporarily Latinized 
just how one felt on opening a Chicago paper to find 
the editor of the "Emporia Gazette" quoted as remark- 
ing of the architecture of his face that "there was 
nothing but features in it," and to see on the front 
page a cartoon of a book-keeper — the sort of hard- 
worked, patient, quizzical office-slave that McCutcheon 
would draw — poring over a ledger in his shirt-sleeves, 
while a thermometer near by registered ninety-six 
degrees, and in a woodeny cloud above his head floated 
a vision of water, a hammock, a shirt-waist girl, and a 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

pitcher of lemonade. This breath of home and the 
dog-days coming into that southern winter and the 
toy-aristocracy, with its quaint mixture of punctilious- 
ness and provincialism, suddenly made clear, as few 
things could, some of the fundamental differences be- 
tween ourselves and our Latin neighbors. It was im- 
possible to imagine a Chilian editor of Mr. William 
Allen White's attainments talking about himself in 
type with that intimate, half-deprecatory humor. As 
completely alien to such a place as Santiago was that 
homogeneity of feeling, that love for people just be- 
cause they are people, even to the length of taking 
interest in the common physical emotions, which had 
made it natural to put on the front page of a great paper 
the picture of a warm and over-worked young man in 
his shirt-sleeves. To the South American periodista it 
would have seemed almost indelicate. His paper is 
published for an upper crust of people, most of whom 
think a good deal about the dignity of their position. 
He and they take themselves seriously. His editorials 
are written in the grand manner, like messages to 
Congress. When he wants to lighten the paper he 
prints illustrations from foreign journals or translations 
of French novels or letters from very literary corre- 
spondents. If a Spanish-American cartoonist were to 
use such a subject, he would get his effect in a purely 
visual and external way — the poor clerk would be seen 
melting down like an image of wax or catching on fire. 
Physical grotesqueries of this sort are typical of Span- 
ish humor — people getting hanged and kicking and 

178 



SANTIAGO 

squirming absurdly, heads being sliced off and looking 
greatly surprised at its being done, a butcher sawing 
through a bone and cutting off the ends of his fingers. 
It is the racial variation of our kicking mules and 
slippery banana-peels. It would never have occurred 
to him to sentimentalize the hard-working young 
clerk, to make his appeal not to his audience's eyes or 
sense of the grotesque, but to their human sympathy, 
for the simple reason that there is no community of 
feeling in the people about him of which this would be 
an expression. 

It is the lack of this atmospheric sense of kinship 
which often makes young North Americans poorer col- 
onists than their German and British competitors. 
They pine away in the chill vacuum between the punc- 
tilious upper class and the illiterate, impossible, lower 
world. There is none of our blessed vulgarity — using 
the word in its most literal and highest sense — none of 
that cheerful, half-humorous consciousness of common 
weaknesses and resignation to a common fate. There 
is no warm, comfortable middle ground. The whole 
arrangement of society is aristocratic, democratic 
though it be in name. 

And yet, if I were to choose from all the Other 
Americans I met, the one whose experience had most 
nearly duplicated that of an able and energetic man 
at home, it would probably be a citizen of this very 
City of the Hundred Families. This young man was 
a newspaper editor, and a South American redactor 
is generally a very mighty person, indeed. Yet he 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

affected none of the ambassadorial grand manner. 
He was what the South Americans call simp&tico — 
which does not mean merely sympathetic, but con- 
notes a general notion of things agreeable, congenial, 
and winsome — and, at the same time, level-headed, 
and sensible. He spoke English with scarcely an 
accent, and, although he had never been in the States, 
talked about us— the railroads, trusts, insurance, the 
negro question — with an embarrassing ease and fa- 
miliarity. Quite frankly and with great good-humor he 
told about the good and bad that had come from 
the nitrate fields, the things Chilians of the old school 
must bring themselves to meet. The government rail- 
road might interest some of our people. It was badly 
equipped, carelessly run, and it was impossible to 
keep up the efficiency of the employees. No sooner 
was a man discharged for inefficiency than some poli- 
tician got him his job back again. As for education, 
he* wished that more of the money spent on university 
and secondary instruction might be put into primary 
and grammar schools. The result was a kind of intel- 
lectual poverty. The upper-class boys get their educa- 
tion free, but what did they give back to the state in 
return? 

"They get their degrees," was the way he put it, 
"but what do they do with their lives afterward?" 

It was, indeed, still true that the country was dom- 
inated by the old families. But this could not last 
forever, and even now politics was reaching out beyond 
the pale. As he said this he picked up a morning's 

180 




o 



SANTIAGO 

paper and ran his pencil down the list of names of the 
newly elected senate — Figueroa, Irarzaval, Fernandez, 
Tocornal — all conservatives these, as one could tell by 
their names; yet here beside them were two new men, 
one a shopkeeper, neither of whom had any connection 
with the old families at all. 

Indeed, as far as this went, he, himself, was quite 
what in the States we should call a " self-made man." 
He had come from a poor family in the south of Chile, 
without money or connections, thinking at first that 
he was going to be a great literary man. He had 
written poems in those days, even a novel. Possibly — 
and unless you have had some little acquaintance with 
the continent in which every other man who can write 
at all tries to be "literary," you can hardly appreciate 
the quite " American" quality of this half-humorous 
self-deprecation — one might still find a copy of it in 
the book-shops. After a while he decided that he 
wasn't a genius, and went to work for a newspaper. 
And here he was at the top — the mighty redactor, au- 
thor of an " inspired" editorial which the country 
gravely read each morning, and still a young man; he 
knew everyone, was received everywhere, could go into 
the Congress if he wanted to. 

I had dropped in on this man unexpectedly in a busy 
part of the day, and I took up an hour or so of his time 
asking tiresome questions, and yet to the end he be- 
haved with the good-humor and good sense of the best 
type of North American, and with the courtesy of the 
Spanish gentleman. He was almost what is called "a 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

good mixer," and anything more alien to the tradi- 
tional upper-class Latin- American than that it is hard 
to imagine. It is men like this who are the southern 
continent's men of to-morrow, who are, indeed, the 
Other Americans. 



182 



CHAPTER XI 

ACROSS THE CORDILLERAS IN WINTER 

i 
The wall of the Andes begins at the Caribbean and 

runs all the way down the western edge of South 
America until it trails off into the Antarctic like a 
jagged dragon's tail. It is a very high wall and a very 
wide one — sometimes scores and sometimes hundreds 
of miles across — and except in a few places all but im- 
passable. There is the Oroya railroad in Central Peru, 
the highest in the world, which will take you from the 
drowsy tropical coast at breakfast time and by early 
afternoon set you on the roof of the divide, shivering 
and breathing fast, fifteen thousand and five hundred 
feet above the sea. There is a railroad up to Lake 
Titicaca from Mollendo in southern Peru, which crosses 
thp shoulder of the Andes at an altitude about a thou- 
sand feet lower, and there is a railroad running down 
into Chile and the coast from the Bolivian plateau. 
The only railroad highway which crosses the continent, 
however, is that which climbs the Chilian mountains 
to the pass of Uspallata and runs thence across the 
pampa to Buenos Aires. Some day this will be a 
through line from sea to sea, and in a dozen or more 
places tunnel gangs are nibbling under the upper 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

Cordillera; but now it is open only during the summer, 
and even then the fourteen kilometres over the cumbre, 
or summit of the pass, must be made by stage. In 
winter no attempt is made to cross, and from Mendoza, 
in the Argentine foothills, over to Los Andes on the 
Chilian side — about one hundred and fifty miles — the 
road is closed. 

The Andes in these parts rise to appalling heights, 
the loftiest of which is Aconcagua's twenty-four thou- 
sand feet, and the pass itself is at not far from thirteen 
thousand — 3,900 metres to be exact. During the win- 
ter — the months of our northern summer — it is buried 
in snow, the deadly temporal is likely at any time to 
whirl down on the traveller, and crossing the cordillera 
is as different a thing from crossing it in summer as 
crossing a Montana prairie carpeted with spring violets 
is different from venturing into it during a blizzard, 
when a man may lose his way and freeze to death a 
furlong from the ranch-house door. Whoever tries to 
cross after the first of June is supposed to take his life 
in his hands. I want this thoroughly understood. 
The earth is getting extremely civilized and the num- 
ber of things reckoned as impossible or even dangerous 
to do are decreasing every day. No man with any 
regard for his reputation can be too careful. Before 
I went to South America the Chilian Minister in Wash- 
ington told me that he had got across once the second 
week in June, but only at the loss of one of his men. 
Acquaintances in Santiago assured me that if one 
escaped freezing or starvation one was always likely 

184 



ACROSS THE CORDILLERAS 

to fall a victim to rotos who, discharged by the tunnel 
engineers for drunkenness, had become embittered 
against the world and devoted their lives to hiding in 
narrow passes and rolling boulders down on whoever 
went by. And the two gifted reporters of the Buenos 
Aires "Prensa" — familiar with the country naturally, 
and students of men — who interviewed the traveller 
after his arrival in that metropolis, declared in their 
story the next day that the "molestias " and "penurias " 
which he had " endured during this via cruris were 
imposible de narrar and revealed a man of courage and 
will unconquerable." That ought to prove something. 
Lest, however, this should seem merely the reckless 
exploit of a tenderfoot, I hasten to explain that there 
was I waiting in Santiago, there was the distinguido 
canciller norte americano, Senor Root, within a few 
days of Buenos Aires and the most splendid moments 
of his continental tour. Through some perverse fate, 
there was no mail-boat sailing round through the Straits 
for another week, the voyage would take at least ten 
days, and the thought of limping into the harbor of 
Buenos Aires just as the parting salutes were being 
fired and the Charleston was dropping down the bay, 
was not to be borne. So here was the choice: on the 
one hand a week's wait, a racking fortnight by sea and 
the probability of missing the festivities in Buenos 
Aires; on the other, avalanches, bandits, death and 
destruction, but — the fascinating chance of fairly 
stepping across the continent, as it were, like climbing 
over a garden wall. Three days in the snow, the local 

185 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

down to Mendoza and then, if one caught the bi-weekly- 
express, Buenos Aires in twenty-four hours more — five 
days instead of three weeks. There was no choice here, 
surely, so I packed up one afternoon and took the train 
for the foothills. 

It was the hour when the Andean rampart, blocking 
the eastern sky-line, melted in the afterglow into a 
purple and amethyst mystery and became at once 
beautiful and vaguely fearful; when the newsboys 
crying the afternoon papers, the dark-eyed Chilian 
ladies coming out to drive, the crowded sidewalks, the 
lights beginning to blink in the shops, occasional twilight 
odors of flowers and feminine perfumes and Brazilian 
coffee and cigarette smoke made the Chilian capital a 
place hard to leave behind. The Valparaiso express 
whirled up to Llai Llai — which you pronounce, cheer- 
fully, "Yi! Yi!" — and I shifted into the local for Los 
Andes. I slept there that night at the little hotel 
whose English landlady sniffed the air as she closed 
my shutters and prophesied snow, and the next morn- 
ing, after emptying my trunk and packing my luggage 
in two of the landlady's empty potato-sacks, in bun- 
dles of thirty kilos each, found a corner in a repafr-car 
bound up the line. Laboriously we panted past the 
zone of farms, above the snow-line presently, and the 
chill breath from the ice chambers of the upper levels 
crept down and pierced one's bones. At last the end 
of the road and Juncal, at about 7,800 feet — a station, 
an engineer's shack, a traveller's posada, little blots on 
the expanse of white, far above which, climbing one 

186 




Juncal, on the Chilian side at the end of the railroad, at an altitude of about 

7,800 feet. 




On the trail from Portillo. The natural bridge of Puenta del Inca. 



ACROSS THE CORDILLERAS 

behind another and vanishing in the chill, steely mist, 
stretched the portals of the Cordillera. 

There were no burden-carriers ready, although the 
amateur bandit — a British railroad superintendent — to 
whom I had paid one hundred and fifty dollars Chilian 
"to set me down on the other side," as his graceful 
euphemism had it, had promised that they were wait- 
ing all along the line. The trail was too steep and 
rough for mules. And as the afternoon was fair and I 
was anxious to push along as far as possible while the 
weather held, I left the luggage to be brought on as 
soon as men could be found and started up the trail 
alone. 

Juncal diminished to a polka-dot in the snow. The 
valley sunk and widened, the heads of foothills lower 
down came out. Up above meandered the trail, like 
some Jack-and-the-Beanstalk's path to regions un- 
known, and beyond it, rising endlessly, peaks and shoul- 
ders of naked rock and snow disappearing in the steely 
mist. Occasionally, down the stillness, came a faint tick- 
tack — the far-carried sound of the tunnelers nibbling 
into the mountain a mile or two away. And presently, 
after a climb of seven kilometres and about a thousand 
feet up, there appeared in the snow some low roofs and 
walls which looked the pictures of winter quarters 
that Arctic explorers bring home. 

Winter quarters they were in this weather, although 
merely to house the commissary-chief of the tunnel 
gangs, and likely, as a photograph he showed me later 
proved, to be buried under forty feet of snow when a 

187 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

temporal came. He stood in the low doorway to greet 
me, a big, bearded, downright Scotchman, little dream- 
ing, I dare say, how welcome in this silent wilderness 
that welcome seemed. It was twilight by now — the 
hour which the Britisher's teacup follows round the 
world. It was ready on the table and with it crisp 
British biscuits and the inevitable British jam. There 
was a fire in the room, which was more than could 
be said for the hotel left behind in Santiago, an oil 
stove that kept the place piping hot. There were book- 
cases on the walls. Kipling, Thackeray and Stevenson, 
and on the table the "Spectator," "Pick Me Up" and 
"The Pink Un." There was the company's physician, 
too — a very Dr. Watson of a doctor, who came in from 
skeeing, presently, in knickerbockers, ruddy and cheer- 
ful, and sat down with us to tea. The Scotchman 
threw up his hands when he heard what I had paid for 
the privilege of walking, became reassuringly furious 
when he heard that the luggage-carriers had not been 
provided forthwith, set the company's telephone wire 
burning back down to the trail to Los Andes and on up 
the pass to Carocoles. What were they thinking of, 
what right had they to do such things, how could they 
leave this poor stranger stranded here in the mountains 
— now in English and in burring Spanish, while I sat 
back and beamed. 

When the big lamp had been lit and dinner served, 
from some recess of that superlative little cave ap- 
peared our proveedor's wife — wonder of wonders in 
these desolate mountains — a gentle-voiced English- 

188 



ACROSS THE CORDILLERAS 

speaking woman, with that clear Northern glance of 
intelligence and understanding which the gringo some- 
how often misses in the prettier eyes of the Latin 
Americans. She took her place at the head of the 
table, wrapping us about in a certain grateful sense of 
orderliness and God-fearing dignity, and we dined po- 
litely and well that night up there in the snow. After 
the table was cleared we gathered round the stove and 
smoked and talked mightily of nations and navies and 
wars, as strange men thrown thus together, are wont 
to do, and the world seemed a very good old world in- 
deed, when the three Indians and I started up the trail 
for Carocoles the next morning with the proveedor 
waving a good-by. 

Portillo slipped over the edge of the slope as Juncal 
had done. In spite of the altitude and the weight they 
carried — one with the empty steamer trunk, in which 
a stick and a straw hat rattled lugubriously, the other 
two with the bag and gunny sacks — they chug-chugged 
steadily up the slope. We met the Argentine mail 
coming down — half a dozen poncho-clad burden-carriers 
who gave a cheery "Bueno f Dias, senor!" and a grin 
and a "Ha' yego" as they stumped away. We struck 
Carocoles — a roomful of blueprints, an engineer, more 
tinned meat, more coffee — and then, just at luncheon 
time, started the steep climb over the cumbre. It was 
close to twelve thousand feet now and like climbing a 
Gothic roof. We took turns breaking trail, each man 
stepping into the footmarks of the man ahead, and 
every fifty yards or so the burden-carriers stopped and 

189 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

leaned on their staffs puffing in a strange fashion 
like steamboat whistles blowing far away, while the 
adventurous mastiff which had followed us from 
Caro coles squatted in the snow, panting and grinning 
with the greatest good humor. We had been at it stead- 
ily for perhaps two hours when the leader pointed up 
the slope. 

"Cristo!" he said, and a quarter of a mile ahead we 
saw a figure standing out against the gray sky. 

It was the statue which the two nations set there 
when they signed their peace agreement. It stands at 
the very summit of the pass, over which in 1817 the 
great San Martin marched his men into Chile to break 
the power of Spain, on the line between Chile and the 
Argentine. It is a statue of Christ, standing beside a 
cross, and on the pedestal two figures in low-relief, 
sitting back to back, point out over the tumbled sea 
of peaks and valleys to east and west. 

To the countries who set it there it means or it is 
meant to mean, an everlasting peace, and to us, too, 
it meant peace and that the hardest part of the journey 
was over, and we unslung burdens and rested there for 
a moment, in great cheerfulness, on the summit of the 
divide. Then we sat down on our sheepskins and slid 
down into Argentina. It was done with great eclat. 
The chief bandit went first, with my legs under his 
arms, as though we were school-boys together; the other 
two followed, the packs and the trunk piling snow 
before them like a plough, a proceeding calculated, one 
might fancy, to induce strange thoughts in the uneasy 

190 



ACROSS THE CORDILLERAS 

stick, umbrella, straw hat and other summer vanities 
locked therein. At the foot of the slope was Las Cue- 
vas, one day to be the Argentine end of the tunnel, 
and another engineer's camp. Its chief was a Nor- 
wegian, the proveedor was a Frenchman with a long, 
delicately curly beard which he carefully sprayed with 
a perfume atomizer before we sat down to dinner that 
night, and the mechanical engineer was an American, 
who had put in machinery all over the world, and who 
averred that the altitude and the solitude got on his 
nerves so that a man might come into his room and 
take his watch from under his pillow before he could 
pull a gun, even though he "had been born in Boise 
City and seen a little life, too." We had just settled 
once again that night what would have happened had 
the Japanese attacked Great Britain instead of Russia, 
when the telephone buzzed and Carocoles called across 
the summit that another white man was coming over 
and if I could wait until nine o'clock the next morning 
we might go down together. A man who could walk 
from Juncal to Carocoles in one day and feel like cross- 
ing the cumbre before nine o'clock the next morning 
was worth waiting for. 

He came, all right, a lithe, close-knit figure in riding 
breeches and blue serge coat, swinging down the slope 
in a fashion that showed he had gone 'cross country 
before. He had no baggage but a battered kit bag 
which contained little, apparently, but the trousers 
that matched the coat. With this outfit he was ready 
at five minutes' notice for the town or "bush" and to 

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carry more was absurd. You could always buy clothes, 
he said, throw them away when you moved on and save 
enough on baggage charges to buy new stuff at the next 
place. He was an engineer — that is to say, he had 
knocked about the world from one construction camp 
to another — and it was quite true to South America, 
where a white man with mechanical sense is valuable, 
that this unbranded maverick, who might have been 
from his face, a professional bull-fighter or a bareback 
rider in a circus, was on his way to England to buy 
hydraulic machinery for some South Chilian mines. He 
was thirty, perhaps, with one of those sinister, yet not 
unattractive faces, which remind one of a street-dog 
whose head is nicked and scarred with many battles. 
He talked little, asked no questions and laughed, when 
he did laugh, harshly and rather mirthlessly. He had 
come from Australia originally, the stick he swung was 
made of the same wood of which the Fuegian Indians 
made their bows, and he could ask for bread or its 
substitute in the lingo of the Upper Nile, the Zulu 
country, the Transvaal and the Australian "bush." 

He spoke of the remote corners of the earth as men 
do of shops at which this or that thing can best be 
bought. It was "good" down here in South America 
now — no use going to the Transvaal any more, nothing 
in Australia for him. Whatever answered to him for 
the rule-and-line man's work or profession seemed 
something wholly casual, and to be picked up or caught 
like gold or trout. I was a fool to go back to the States 
by way of Rio — why in hell didn't I take the New 

192 



ACROSS THE CORDILLERAS 

Zealand boat, touch at Cape Town and see Australia? 
You could buy a bicycle next to nothing these days and 
the roads were so good in Australia you could ride all 
over the place and see everything worth seeing for 
forty dollars American. 

We had got two mules, one of which the muleteer 
wanted to ride and one of which carried the baggage, 
but the Australian was, as the Los Cuevas proveedor 
observed, "un diablo a andar" and we swung down the 
slope like Indians. And in that thin air, in the fresh 
frostiness of morning, nothing less than ropes and 
levelled guns could have kept a live man on a mule. 
We had just crossed the roof of the continent, on our 
own legs and lungs, and the easy slope stretched below 
— down to the foothills, to the pampa far below, to 
Buenos Aires and the sea and the long up-trail to 
Europe and the States. 

Aconcagua heaved up on the left through a rift in 
the valley, vanishing into some gray swirling region of 
mist and snow. Fourteen kilometres brought us to 
the steaming baths of Puenta del Inca, where a winter- 
bound hotel keeper dug up a lunch from his stores and 
a bottle of the spicy Argentine claret to wash it down, 
and then on we pushed. Toward sundown, thanks 
to a telegram sent ahead from Puenta del Inca, a fresh 
mule came picking his way up the trail, and as darkness 
closed in the snow gave way and we began to rattle 
over dry stones. This was so exhilarating that when 
we reached the Paramillo de Las Vacas, where we had 
planned to spend the night, we saddened the mule- 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

driver and infuriated the mules by deciding to push on 
three more kilometres to Zanjon Amarillo to which the 
railroad was still open and where we might catch a 
repair train the next day. 

Night settled down. Every few hundred yards we 
had to make wide detours where slides had heaped the 
roads with rocks. Nothing but a continuous bombard- 
ment kept the mules moving at all. But the thought 
of getting back to a railroad, of a lodging for the night — 
to my disordered imagination even a bath seemed pos- 
sible — buoyed us on. A lone light presently sparkled 
down the canon. We reached the deserted station 
and unslung the packs. We had walked and ridden 
forty-three kilometres that day — descending to slightly 
below eight thousand feet — twenty-seven miles, most 
of it over a rough snow trail which was a succession of 
frozen muletracks a foot or two deep. We were just 
relaxing in that self-congratulatory coma which follows 
such an adventure when the mule-driver, who had dis- 
appeared toward the one light in the place, came back 
with the information that nobody would take us in. 
It could not be possible. Here were two travellers with 
money in their belts, here was an impoverished Andean 
station-master, light, fire, food, warmth — no, it must 
be impossible. I went myself. A woman opened the 
door, a scant two inches, no more. No, she had no food, 
no place for us to sleep, no blankets to lend us to sleep 
outside, not even a bite of bread nor a swallow of wine. 
No, nothing — absolutamente nada ! And the door closed. 
Apparently she was afraid of us. There were bandits in 

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ACROSS THE CORDILLERAS 

the Cordillera. And we were they. It seems amusing 
now but it didn't then. It was a vast cosmic tragedy 
— two heroes poised here somewhere between two 
oceans, in a rocky desert on a winter night, lame, 
fagged, no food, no blankets, no one to appreciate their 
heroism. The mule man came at last to the rescue. A 
friend of his, he mumbled in his queer lingo, three 
kilometres farther down the canon, might take us in. 
Was it possible to propel our battered carcasses three 
kilometres more? Not weeping, but half-way to tears, 
as Peer Gynt would say, we packed the outraged 
mules again and started down the track. 

Of course one might have known that there would 
be trouble. You can't fool all the mules all the time. 
I got down from mine finally after vainly trying to keep 
up with the other two by kicking a steady tattoo on his 
ribs and found that by walking behind him he also could 
be induced to walk. The instant I came up on a level 
with his head he stopped as though turned to stone. 
I had just worked out this system when a light twinkled 
in the distance, a dog barked, and through the darkness 
came a clatter of hoofs as the other mules were gal- 
vanized to life. At the sound my mule started as 
though shot out of a gun. I just managed to catch the 
pack behind the saddle and for a hundred yards we 
pursued this unequal race when, just as we were 
scrambling up a gully, I was struck in the chest by a 
cannon-ball. I dropped and rolled down the stones with 
as much abandon and realism as though I were being 
employed by a biograph agent to assist in manufactur- 
es 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

ing a view of the siege of Port Arthur. Then all was 
still. The events of his past life filed in quick succession 
across the traveller's brain, as he stared up at the un- 
sympathetic zenith. I was conscious of a smell of dust 
and shrubs, of stars twinkling far overhead. It seemed 
sad to die there, so far from home and friends, alone, cut 
off in one's bloom under these cold Andean stars. 

Came a call — like a life-belt to a ship-wrecked mar- 
iner — "Patron! Patron!" It was our bandit, another 
of those charming professional bandits like the one who 
had slid downhill with me, leading my mule and want- 
ing to know if I was hurt. My wind returned. I was 
not dead, only a tooth-brush in an inside pocket was 
shattered beyond repair. And we rode on to our 
lodging for the night, the mule laughing lightly on the 
way. 

It was a stone hut like a little cave with a corrugated 
iron roof and a low door through which shone lamp and 
firelight. Our host stood in front of it, a mongrel, 
half-breed sort of fellow, keeping back his dogs. This, 
at least, should have been a regular bandit and this is 
what he did. 

"Bueno' noches, senor!" he said, and cursing back 
the dogs, he took me by the hand and led me into the 
hut as though I were a princess. Supper was already 
cooking on the stove for him and his friends, who, 
judging by the wine jug and the half-drained tumblers, 
were preparing to make a night of it; but they wrapped 
their ponchos about them and withdrew to one side, 
while he, pressing his hands to his heart with abject 

196 



ACROSS THE CORDILLERAS 

apologies for his "pobre casa" made us sit down on the 
only bench. It was drawn up to a shelf-table against 
the wall on which the bloody head of a sheep, apparent- 
ly butchered that day, stared lugubriously out of fishy 
eyes. He brought out some of the unleavened pie- 
crusty bread and the spicy native wine, while his wife, 
cutting some pieces from a chicken which had been 
boiled, head and all, down to the very bill, put them on 
to broil. If he had been brought up on tales of Spanish 
hospitality, he could have done no more. Continually 
he apologized for his poor house, every move made near 
us was with a "con su permiso," and when we tried 
to apologize for our intrusion and he heard that the 
Australian had once worked on the Carocoles division, 
he said that "to have work for Helmundson was worth 
four letters of introduction." He was an Argentine 
and his wife was a Chilian, but he "knew the Ingleses" 
and thought they were a particularly fine gente. When 
we were done he led us with great ceremony into the 
little whitewashed, hermetically sealed room adjoining, 
containing the only bed he owned. He brought in a 
tumbler of water and set it on the box beside the bed. 
"Siempre bueno" he said, looking from the glass to us, 
and spreading out his hands. And then, when he had 
us there, two tired white men supposedly with money 
in their clothes and helpless before him and his friends, 
he unslung his own revolver, a big Colt's 44, and with as 
much care as though he were sighting a cannon, laid it 
on the box beside the glass of water, with the muzzle 
pointed toward the door and ready to our hands. 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

We slept the sleep of the weary that night while the 
bandits, drinking each other's saluds and wailing the 
melancholy cries with which the mountaineers drive 
their mules, sent strange storm-winds blowing through 
our dreams. The next morning we flagged a wrecking 
train, and with that intoxicating speed which only those 
who have experienced for a few days the tragic little- 
ness of a human's machinery can understand, swept 
down to Uspallata. Here we must needs sleep on the 
station floor that night and wait the next day while the 
wrecking-crew shovelled avalanches off the track. We 
— the Australian and an Englishman whom I had met 
on a West Coast boat and never expected to see again — 
played bridge, shot at bottles, and vainly tried to lure 
a neighborhood condor into seeing distance by climbing 
half-way up a mountain, lying down on a bare rock and 
pretending to be dead, and, toward sundown, at last 
started down the ninety-two kilometres to Mendoza. 
In a tool-car, lit only by our cigarettes, we swayed 
round canons and over bridges, rolled down through 
the foothills, and at bedtime climbed out of the car 
into warm air and what might haye been a Kansas 
county-seat, with a grocery store on the corner and 
long streets with elms arching over them, lit by electric 
lights. 

All our movements the next day were characterized 
by that exaggerated leisureliness, amounting almost to 
calculation, that dreamy benignity, which men who 
have been roughing it for a time exhibit when they 
find themselves once more lapped in the infinite 

198 



ACROSS THE CORDILLERAS 

comforts of civilization. Lazily we strolled across 
the sunshiny court to the bath-rooms and wal- 
lowed interminably in stone tubs as big as life- 
boats, dressed and breakfasted with exquisite care, 
and drifted about town with a sort of moon-struck 
purr. 

It was a comfortable little city of thirty thousand 
or so, with broad overhanging trees and a certain atmos- 
phere of the soil, of agricultural vigor and wholesome- 
ness, different from the average Latin- American town. 
Its main street was full of shops for harness and farm 
machinery, and in some of the stores machines were 
demonstrating as at a county fair. Capable-looking 
farmers watched them — doubtless from the vineyards 
round about — and among them were Italians in cordu- 
roys and with bright handkerchiefs around their necks, 
a husky, thick-necked breed, different from most of the 
immigrants who flock to our shores. Down this cobble- 
stoned street, which was wide, overhung with trees 
rather like our Northern elms, and named after the great 
San Martin, they had their corso, or carriage parade 
that afternoon. Victorias with bells on the tongue and 
two-wheeled country carts pounded over the cobble- 
stones at a brisk trot, so that the band, which stood in 
a circle on the broad sidewalk, was completely drowned 
out. But the happy farmers and Mendoza's distin- 
guidas — vigorous, handsome young Chloes, dark-skinned 
and dark-eyed, with a shadow of down on the upper 
lip and painted and powdered regardless — didn't mind 
this in the least and rattled enthusiastically on, beam- 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

ing from ear to ear. There was a certain provincial 
good humor, a rather exhilarating vulgarity about all 
this which seemed to belong to this country of princely 
estancias, of cattle and wheat and wine, of grazing land, 
stretching flat as a sea from horizon to horizon — the 
pastoral echo of the raw, splendid metropolis of Buenos 
Aires. 

They were thriving, provident folk, these Mendozians, 
just such a first generation as that which gathered the 
money for those who are sowing the wind in Buenos 
Aires to-day. One of their endowment insurance 
organizations had just celebrated its fifth anniversary 
— the windows of its office on this same main street 
were hung with copies of a paper it had published con- 
taining reports of its progress and portraits of some 
of its sturdiest subscribers. On the middle page was 
a large family, all of whom, from the bull-necked father, 
with his stubby fingers set firmly on his knees, to the 
baby in arms, had paid up their premiums in advance 
and were star members of the u Caja International" 
One enthusiastic subscriber had contributed a poem: 

International Strong Box, 
Institution powerful, 
Which advances ever gloriously 
In pursuit of its high ideal. 

Arriba los corazones! 
Nada de miedos pueriles! 
Si hoy nos contamos por miles 
Pronto seremos milliones! 
200 



ACROSS THE CORDILLERAS 

More in the real Mendoza manner was a dialogue 
between father and little son, which ran as follows : 

Nino: Papa, give me five centavos. 

Padre: Why do you want that, my hijito f 

Nino: To buy caramels. 

Padre: Caramelas! Ah, what so wretched things 
are those caramelas ! You will make yourself sick and 
destroy your teeth. Never eat caramels, my hijito. 

Nino: What shall I buy then? 

Padre: Nothing, my boy, because you don't need 
anything. Why not put the five centavos which I give 
you every day to some better use? 

Nino: And what should I do with them, Papaito? 

Padre: Put them in a bank which I will tell you 
about. Then at the end of a month how many would 
you have in the little bank? Can you count that 
much? 

Nino: Certainly, papa; thirty days multiplied by 
five will give me one hundred and fifty centavos. 

Padre: Correct — a dollar and a half. That little 
sum deposited each month in the "Caja Internacional" 
will bring you after twenty years a good pension for all 
your life. 

Nino: Dios mio! And must I wait twenty years to 
receive the pension? 

Padre: Yes — the time is long, but the sacrifice you 
make is insignificant, and besides, how old are you 
now? 

Nino: Ten years, little papa. 

Padre: Very well. When you are thirty and in the 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

very prime of life, will it not seem a great joy to receive 
every month a pension? 

Nino: You do not know, papa, how this idea pleases 
me! I'll begin to-day to save all the centavos you and 
mamma give me, but — a doubt comes to me 

Padre: Speak, my son, what may that be? 

Nino: Tell me, papa, if rascals should steal all the 
money in the "Caja International," how could it pay 
the pensions it promises? 

Padre: That is impossible, for two reasons. First, 
because all the money destined to pay pensions is 
invested in great buildings, houses, land, etc., which 
produce large incomes, and which, as you can very 
well comprehend, no thief can steal or put in his pocket- 
book. And, secondly, I must tell you that those at the 
head of the "Caja International" are all honorable 
men, who watch its interests tirelessly, and will permit 
no thefts nor irregularities. 

This seems to prove it and after the father explains 
how the pension may be obtained before twenty years 
by paying a larger premium, the thrifty youngster 
decides to take out two annuities. 

"So that I will receive two pensions!" he cries. 
"One ten years from now and the other in twenty. Oh, 
what happiness! Thanks, a thousand thanks, dear 
papa! I want no more caramels, nor sweets, nor toys 
of any kind!" 

Except for the sight of this quaint corso, whanging 
up and down the Boulevar San Martin, delighted with 
itself and drowning out the band, and of the theatre 

202 



ACROSS THE CORDILLERAS 

audience that night with half the young men in the 
parquet in their hats and a gentleman in a proscenium 
box, one hand on the hip, twirling in the other the last 
whisper of "el sport ingles," sl cane fashioned like a golf 
club, with a silver cleek for a handle — time was lacking 
to penetrate very deeply into what the Mendoza society 
editor called "our gran mundo." Indeed, it appeared 
that, at the moment there was a slight slump in the 
activities of Mendoza's gay world. "We have heard," 
admitted the society editor, with that veiled and con- 
servative phraseology necessary in communities of 
moderate size, "a number of conversations tending to 
devise means to discover some variation in the pro- 
gramme of our distractions, in order that they may not 
be wholly and exclusively theatre-parties." 

There had been, apparently, a lack of team-work. 
"It would always be easy," said the society editor, 
"to find a solution in those moments of crisis which 
occasionally assault our social life when, in spite of the 
general desire, not a single fiesta is realized, if those 
remedies could be put in practice which the ladies, 
without troubling much about it, hit upon in their 
informal gatherings. 

"According to the ladies, they are more enthusiastic, 
and if they could act with all the freedom which the 
masculine sex uses, we should never have to lament 
those occasional seasons of boredom. They are often 
overheard to make vigorous recriminations against the 
young men. 

"On the other hand, the young men say that it is 

203 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

not enough for them to plan attractive things, for they 
often find that when, with the best intentions, they 
have gone to a great deal of trouble and work, they are 
obliged to abandon the whole thing, owing to insur- 
mountable obstacles. 

"The fact is," concludes the editor, "the blame is 
on both sides. Let us hope that the good intentions 
now active may succeed in bringing some new element 
into the distracciones de nuestro gran mundo" 

From this metropolis of the foothills, the biweekly 
express — a compartment sleeping-car, what looked like 
an ordinary Pullman, several day-coaches and a dining- 
car — like an overland train at home except for the 
unfamiliar width necessitated by the broad trans- 
continental gauge — hurried us away the next evening 
toward Buenos Aires. All night we rode and the next 
morning were whirling eastward at fifty miles an hour 
across the level pam'pa. It was raining, all the earth 
was saturated and hung with mist, and under this 
mist, although the last week in July, and midwinter, 
the cattle were still grazing on "green feed." The 
prairie was level as a summer sea — once the track was 
laid for two hundred miles without a curve, as straight 
as a line ruled across a sheet of paper — from horizon to 
horizon only grass and cattle and more cattle and more 
grass. From time to time appeared a station, with 
shabby buildings clumped round about, a stockade, a 
grain elevator perhaps, a few bronzed cattlemen in 
ponchos, boots covered with pasty mud. Nothing else 
broke the level earth. And after the West Coast 

204 



ACROSS THE CORDILLERAS 

deserts, the choked and drowsy jungles of the North, 
these infinite open stretches, with their brown armies 
of long-horned steers, unrolling, mile after mile and 
hour after hour, saturated with moisture, fertile, en- 
veloped in mists, seemed limitless as a sea, suggested a 
potentiality and fecundity incalculable. 

Darkness shut down on the prairie, there came more 
frequent stations, suburbs at last, then the twinkling 
extent of the city. A hotel courier in uniform put me 
into a cab, the cab rolled quietly off to the hotel over 
asphalt streets glistening under arc lamps and dripping 
with rain. A hall-boy, and a chamber-maid in neat 
black and white, led the way to my room and turned 
on the lights. It was extremely magnificent. The 
lamps, shaded in rose-colored silk, suffused in a mellow 
luxuriance the brass bedstead with its counterpane of 
silk and down-quilt folded at the foot, the window 
curtains of heavy rose-colored silk, the polite writing- 
desk with its candle, wax, seal, and carefully arranged 
note paper bearing the monogram of the house. 

The major-domo knocked to get Senor's name and to 
ask if he had dined. The luggage followed and with it 
the freshly starched maid, carrying one of the gunny- 
sacks, still a trifle damp and smelly from the mountain 
snows. She held it as far as she could at arm's length, 
dropped it in a corner and tripped out with lifted eye- 
brows. It began to be a little lonesome ; gone were the 
barbarous inns of the provinces where one sent the half- 
breed mozos away laughing, with a good-natured push 
on the head. I ventured to the door and peered down 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

into the inner court. The guests had mostly finished 
their dinners and were taking their coffee there. There 
were a German father and mother and their tall son, 
one unmistakable American female voice, the inevitable 
Britishers. All were in evening clothes, from all ema- 
nated the tourist's vaguely irritating air of ignorance and 
self-complacency. Dinner was still being served in the 
room adjoining, the orchestra feverishly playing, and 
from there and up from the inner court rose a composite 
breath, of heat, the odor of food, wine, smoke and per- 
fume, of flowing, aimless talk, the unmistakable breath 
of a city hotel, of sophisticated wealth and worldliness. 
It was a long, long way to Las Cuevas and the Cumbre 
and Portillo, and the walk downhill that frosty morn- 
ing. We had stepped across the continent indeed, and 
back into the world again. 



206 



CHAPTER XII 
THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

As we were walking home one night along the Alameda 
in Santiago, I suggested to the young English engineer, 
whom I had just met at dinner, that after his six months 
in the mines it must seem good to get back to town 
again. He agreed that it did, but added that after 
all there wasn't much in Santiago for a man like him. 
He had been buried in a wilderness of snow and rocks, 
without even a Spanish newspaper to give him a 
whisper from the world, and he came down from the 
mountains with emotions not unlike those of a ravening 
wolf who suddenly finds himself approaching a well- 
nourished lamb-chop. And he heaved a great sigh and 
asked if I knew Buenos Aires. 

"Buenos Aires!" he repeated, in that fond enthus- 
iasm which overtakes men who have dined pleasantly 
and are walking home under the stars together, and as 
this seemed the proper time for that banality, I said 
that I supposed that that was the Paris of South 
America. 

"Paris!" he cried, "Why, man! There's more life 
in a minute in Buenos Aires than — why, you talk about 
Paris — Buenos Aires is Paris given a kick and told to 
wake up, that's what Buenos Aires is!" 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

He meant, I suppose, not that Buenos Aires is the 
second Latin city in the world; not its schools and 
hospitals and well-kept streets, its convenient trolley- 
lines and excellent newspapers; not the wheat and 
cattle that pour thence from the Argentine pampa to 
help feed the European cities — but that it supplied 
with particular effectiveness the needs of a voracious 
young Saxon who had been spending six hard months 
in the frozen Andes, trying to keep a lot of Chilian rotos 
from drinking and knifing each other to death. He 
could see, I dare say, over the trees of that quiet Ala- 
meda, beyond the Andean wall which shut in our little 
Chilian world, the Jockey Club "Hipodromo" on a 
Sunday afternoon; the carriage parade afterward in 
the Avenida Sarmiento, moving four rows deep, and 
the horsetail helmets and cuirasses of the mounted 
police shining in the sun; the victorias and shimmering 
parasols flowing through the Recoleta, or the Calle 
Florida ablaze with lights; the "Sportsman" at din- 
ner time, crowded with men, with a band booming in 
the balcony, and on the wall biograph pictures of 
steeple-chasers and Oriental dancers; theatres, the 
opera, possibly some such sailor's paradise as that vast 
steely blue barn of a Casino, with its art nouveau 
nymphs and sizzling arc lamps, where French singers, 
Spanish dancers, German acrobats and English music- 
hall performers follow one another in dizzy profusion, 
and a great mob smokes and shouts its comments in 
every language under the sun. 

It is a thumping, cheerful sort of place, this Casino — 

208 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

about what our Carnegie Music Hall might be if it were 
turned into a Folies-Bergere. The Five Broadway 
Girls appeared the night I was there. They wore 
blonde wigs, to show that they were English, and sang 
in a strange, half-Cockney dialect, not quite like any- 
thing else ever heard on sea or land. For an encore one 
of them threw on a black velvet princesse gown and 
while the others, aided by parasols and old-fashioned 
hoop-skirts, danced a comic background, she paraded 
along the footlights — u ce qui fait valoir des lignes plutot 
appetissantes," as the reporter of "La Divette" put it in 
his review that week, u Je vous dis que c'est a voir" — and 
panted for an explanation of why it was that they 
called her a Gibson Girl. She did not make a very 
good Gibson Girl, but she looked well in her black dress, 
nevertheless, and the audience liked it exceedingly. 
And as she undulated along the footlights to their 
applause, it struck me that this — to have one's drawings 
sung about by a lady in a blonde wig, sandwiched in 
between a Neapolitan cantante and a troupe of inter- 
national wrestlers, thirty-four degrees south of the 
equator before an audience that yelled its approval 
in three or four languages was what a mere North 
American artist might well call fame. 

Or he even may have seen, beyond those snowy, 
silent Andes, the garish front of the Royal, which lies 
round the corner from the Casino and just across from 
the Opera, so that the ninas and their richly uphol- 
stered mammas may wonder at its lithographs and 
watch the strange men drifting thither as their carriages 

209 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

wait in line. The orators tell you that South America 
is the future home of the Latin races, as North America 
will be the home of the Saxons. In such a place as the 
Royal, and in music halls like it on the East Coast, 
one feels as though the hard law of competition had 
already got in its work and driven hither all the spangled 
ladies who were unable to keep an engagement in Paris 
or Naples or Madrid, and whose only art is the ability 
to articulate a few songs and keep a bodice on while 
continually giving the impression that it is about to fall 
off. On the little stage of the Royal they follow one 
another in melancholy procession, each in the same 
kind of strapless bodice and stiff, spangle-encrusted 
skirt, and with the same wriggling of powdered shoul- 
ders and pressing of hands to the heart, rattle off 
French songs that all sound exactly alike. When they 
can sing a few words in broken English or German, an 
international or cosmopolita is added to their names. 
The audience smokes and stares, cynical, indifferent, 
scarcely taking the trouble to applaud, and as their 
turns are finished they resume street clothes and re- 
turn to the boxes that encircle the parquet, there to 
survey critically, occasionally even to applaud, those 
who come after and now and then to smile at one 
another across the smoky horseshoe in their curious 
camaraderie. You will see them again on the French 
liner going north, in steamer chairs billed to Sao Paulo 
or Rio, veiled from the ocean sunshine with the solici- 
tude of the real artiste and treated with much half- 
shy, half-jocular attention by the younger officers. 

210 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

Here in the metropolis they make almost a little half- 
world, which drives with the others at Palermo, or in 
the late afternoon through Florida Street, and has its 
own little paper in which the charms of Suzanne and 
Lucy and Blondine and Parisette — "triple extrait de 
chic et de chair, fleuri sur Vasphalte de la grande ville" — 
are analyzed with intimate enthusiasm, and their go- 
ings and comings solemnly chronicled. 

Of course there are other things in Buenos Aires. 
There are, for instance, over a million busy people to 
a majority of whom, probably all this means as little 
as Broadway, in its narrower sense, means to the greater 
part of New York. And there is the country itself, 
from which, more or less directly, these people live and 
of which it is the hub and heart, in a way that no 
North American city begins to be; not impassable 
mountain ranges nor frosty plateau nor miasmic jungle, 
but level, fertile prairie like Kansas and Nebraska, 
webbed with railroads and covered with wheat-fields 
and cattle. Argentina is the fourth wheat-producing 
country — in a good year it sends as much to Europe 
as is sometimes sent from the United States — and its 
vast pampa and a climate which, although temperate, 
provides "green" feed all the year round, makes it one 
of our strong rivals in supplying meat to Europe. 
Some one hundred and fifty million bushels of wheat 
were raised on these plains in 1906. To Europe from 
the pampa ranches that year went nearly 3,000,000 
sheep and over 2,000,000 quarters of beef, in the form 
of frozen or chilled meat, in addition to some seven 

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thousand tons of "jerked" beef, and some forty 
thousand sheep and cattle shipped on the hoof. And 
practically all of the resulting commerce flows to 
and from the Buenos Aires docks. They are trim, 
these docks, masonry basins strung with electric 
cranes as thick as shade trees on a street. Well 
over two thousand ocean-going vessels arrive in the 
year. 

And not even New York's wharves, with their far 
vaster commerce, give such a picture of the vivid bustle 
and infinite whispering of the sea. For at home, as you 
ride down West Street, for instance, all you see is a big 
bow now and then heaving up above the dock-shed and 
each looks much like another, whether the ship be of 
seven or twenty thousand tons. But here they stretch 
out in all their broadside length, with no sheds set 
between, funnel behind funnel, white bridge towering 
behind white bridge, as far as one can see, as though 
very kindly arranged by some municipal Mr. Brangwyn. 
And one walks along this wonderful street of nations, 
looking into holds and cabins and forecastle ports as 
into so many shop windows. Here are Royal Mails 
from England — the aristocrats of these seas, which 
swim up and down across the tropics with music and 
folks dressing for dinner; the big German "Cap" boats 
■ — Cap Ortegal, Cap Frio and the rest; the French 
and Spanish and Italian liners which bring down 
champagne and aperitifs and opera companies and 
automobiles, and steerages packed with immigrants 
from Genoa and Marseilles and Barcelona and Bor- 

212 




Cranes used in loading and unloading ships at the Buenos Aires docks. 




One of the basins in the Buenos Aires docks. 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

deaux. One moment the electric cranes are swinging 
overhead steel bridges in bolted sections out of a New- 
castle freighter and you listen to Cockney and Scotch, 
the next you step onto a little island, magically 
detached from Italy or Spain, or into the smell of 
Brazilian coffee just from Santos, or of a river boat full 
of oranges just come down the Parana from Paraguay. 
These oranges are from the very trees, like enough, 
which the Dictator Lopez made his people plant when 
they were fighting the combined armies of Brazil and 
Uruguay and Argentina. They fought as though they 
were defending the sacredest principle on earth instead 
of merely laying down their lives for a gifted young man 
who had a European education, a French mistress and 
the idea that he was another Napoleon. For five years 
they fought until it was almost literally true that there 
were no men left in Paraguay and nothing in the 
country but women and children and oranges. The 
women cultivated these to keep their children alive and 
it was they and the orange trees which saved Paraguay 
and put it on its feet. At the granaries, taking in cat- 
tle or beef, are ships with such names as Highland 
Laddie, Beacon Grange, Tremaine, and Wistow Hall — 
you can fairly hear their winch engines singing — 

" The West Wind called: — 'In squadrons the thoughtless galleons 

fly, 

' That bear the wheat and cattle lest street-bred people die.' " 

Here's Admiral Gallendraza de Lamouraix, stout 
Baron Berger of Antwerp, Jose Gallart of Barcelona 

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with the Spanish arms on his funnel and flying the 
yellow and red of Spain — ships and flags from all the 
seven seas, indeed, except from home. 

There are, as I said, many other things. There are 
suburbs, where, of a Sunday morning, with bells ringing 
from the little ivy-covered English church and little 
girls tripping to Sunday-school in their best ribbons 
and freshly starched dresses, you might almost be in 
England. It seems a long way to Arequipa and La 
Paz and the mouldering old cathedrals of Peru. One 
may go out to Hurlingham, and, surrounded by English- 
speaking people, play tennis and golf and polo, even fol- 
low the hounds; or up to Tigre, on the river, and sail 
or paddle or watch an eight-oared crew. There is a 
very superior Zoo. A baby elephant was there when 
I was in Buenos Aires, and as he was the first elephant 
who could claim to be an Argentine, he was very im- 
portant indeed. His growth and behavior were com- 
mented on at length in the newspapers, and every sunny 
afternoon you might see the Hindoo temple and little 
park in which he and his parents lived, surrounded 
by critical loungers and children and nurses, with caps 
and long veils such as French nurses wear. As far as 
merely material things of South American cities go, 
Buenos Aires gathers to itself most of the superla- 
tives. Lima is a little old Spanish town in compari- 
son, Rio Janeiro, with all its beauty, a city of the 
tropics with all that implies of drowsiness and lethar- 
gy. Many little marks of the great city it has — hurry- 
ing uncurious crowds, each unit knowing its own place 

214 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

and moving in its orbit; tired little milliner's maids 
with their hat-boxes; quiet regions of wealth, where, oc- 
casionally, from mysterious interiors, pale men-servants 
in livery emerge at the servants' entrance to blink 
moodily at the bright sunshine. There are downtown 
restaurants with chops and steaks in the windows, be- 
ginning actually to have the time-worn, comfortable 
look and the smell of chop-houses at home. Even 
the motormen look worried. 

Every great city has, however, above these common 
phenomena, a certain overtone, generally caught by 
outsiders, often inaudible to its own people. And the 
Buenos Aires that one hears about in other corners of 
the world, from the man one meets in the steamship 
smoking-room, the young naval officer who touched 
there on his first foreign cruise, is always this town of 
strident pleasure, this Paris told to look alive. Such 
descriptions may not connote very profound nor ap- 
preciative observation, but they are true, as far as they 
go, to that which specially differentiates the metropolis 
from other South American capitals. For here is what 
might be were a million mixed Latins lifted bodily 
oversea, and, retaining all their love of pleasure and 
display, freed from the intangible dusty weights of an 
ancient civilization, from the languors of tropical Rio, 
from the isolation which has kept Lima a city of old 
Spain, set down in a temperate climate and allowed 
to build a town to suit themselves. The city of Good 
Airs was founded nearly four centuries ago, but the 
Buenos Aires of to-day is as new as Chicago. Here, 

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in the Avenida de Mayo, is a Parisian boulevard, with 
its lamps, trees, newspapers kiosks — "Le Rire" hang- 
ing beside "Caras y Caretas" — but where are the 
boulevardiers t Here is the musical old tongue of Spain, 
but the barred windows and fortressed walls and musty 
cathedrals are long since overgrown and forgotten in a 
jumble of French fagades and art nouveau. 

Of the six million people which Argentina is estimated 
to contain, probably half were foreign born. Society, 
in the narrower sense, is supposed to be limited to some 
sixty families, but there is no such aristocracy of blood 
as there is in Spanish Peru, no such approximation to 
a national literature and music as in Portuguese Brazil. 
People came to Argentina to make money and they 
made it, and having done that they flock to the capital 
to spend it as pleasantly as they can. Comparatively 
speaking, they have the air and tastes of the new-rich ; 
that solemn absorption in cutting a dash and those 
rather ingenuous barbarisms, which the French sum 
up in their word rastaqouere, are nowhere better il- 
lustrated than by the rich young Argentines who 
spend their summers in Europe. It was a Frenchman, 
indeed, who coined the word rastopolis to suggest to 
his friends at home his first impressions of Buenos 
Aires. There is something almost hypnotic in the 
effect on the Bonarenses of such words as gran, lujo, 
inmenso. The races are always that gran reunion 
sportiva, every bride of a well-known family is one of 
nuestras bellezas mas renombradas; when you go to a 
party you enter al inmenso hall and climb la gran 

216 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

escalera and your hostess is certain to be one of our 
lujosas senoras. 

And yet, in spite of all this solemn affectation and 
display one never quite misses feeling the great, 
open, wholesome pampa just beyond the city roofs. 
On the way from the bank to the steamship office, 
only a step from the Stock Exchange, you walk 
through Tattersall's, between rows of Durhams and 
Herefords, with pedigrees and prizes hanging on 
the doors of their pens, and Cockney grooms rubbing 
them down and hissing between their teeth. In more 
tropical South America, milk, unless safely boiled, is 
almost unknown; here, tiled dairy lunches are scattered 
all over town and people drop in for the little caramel 
slabs of dulce de leche, just as they spend pennies for 
slot-machine chocolate at home. There is always good 
roast beef and steaks, good cream and butter, and the 
pampa partridges are as cheap as our ordinary chicken. 
In the busy street with its pastry shops and pelu- 
querias you can almost imagine that you smell the wind 
blowing in from the open range ; beyond the smoke and 
glare of the music hall, freshening and transmuting it, 
lies always the vision of the pampa, endlessly rich, moist, 
fertile, immeasurable. And all these lacquered papas 
and richly upholstered mammas become rather whole- 
some farmers or shop-keepers, who have made a quick 
clean-up of it and are now having their holiday. At 
their best, they are really quite splendid, at the worst 
theirs is an amusing and rather exhilarating vulgarity. 

Nothing so well gathers up and visualizes the vari- 

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cms ingredients of this individuality as the Jockey Club 
races and the carriage parade in the Avenida Sarmiento 
afterward on a bright Sunday afternoon. It is in 
character that the Jockey Club should be the most 
widely known social organization of Buenos Aires. 
The exclusive club is, of course, the "Circulo de Armas," 
or "Circulo," as it is generally called. Only native 
Argentinians may belong to it and there, to-day, is 
effected the political manoeuvre of which you read in 
papers next week or next month. The Jockey Club is 
where the stranger is put up, its marble entrance stairs 
and statue of Diana, its luxurious baths and fencing 
rooms are town show-places, and when Mr. Root came, 
for instance, it was the Jockey Club and not a club 
with a commercial or political name which naturally 
prepared to give the great ball. Its race-track is in 
Palermo, at the end of the city's politest avenue, and 
thither the city pours on a great day, much as a purely 
Spanish population would pour toward a bull fight. 

. . . "From an early hour the Avenida Alvear pre- 
sented a more than ever animated overture to that 
great spectacle which unrolled itself in the Hipo- 
dromo. In the brilliant sun of an afternoon, golden 
and gentle, a torrent of vehicles, interminable, rum- 
bling, discharged themselves into the course, covering 
the Avenue and all its length with movement, reflec- 
tions and noise. A dull, incessant rumbling — broken 
only by the crack of whips and the hoarse and nervous 
snorting of automobiles, ravenously pushing their im- 
pertinent snouts in between the multitude of carriages 

218 



, 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

— vibrated for hours under a cloud of dust raised and 
spread by the steady stream of vehicles which, fighting 
for their places, arrived and spread out in kaleidoscopic 
movement, full of vibrations and prismatic reflections" 
— thus the gifted cronista of "El Diario," in a rolling 
Castilian which these jerky words can but faintly sug- 
gest, the day Mr. Root was there. I watched the pro- 
cession that afternoon, at the turn where the Avenida 
Alvear curves into the Recoleta, until the lancers and 
cuirassiers came galloping down the asphalt clearing 
the way. They poured by at a quick trot — innumer- 
able young men twirling upward the eternal black 
moustache; victorias with silver bells, fighting the way 
with rickety old hired hacks bearing tourists or on- 
shore sailors; many family chariots — Papa and Mam- 
ma, overdressed and rather pudgy, facing them, the 
two little girls, sitting very straight, like expensive 
dolls, their little legs, bare above half-stockings, 
doubled under the seat as stiff as any coachman's. 

. . . "All Buenos Aires poured toward the Hipo- 
dromo. Above this swift and restless caravan the spirit 
of the fiesta floated and laughed in an atmosphere gilded 
by the autumnal sun. It was a lavish spectacle of con- 
tentment, of spirits absorbed for the moment in the 
coming sport — regulars eager to try their palpitos, 
simple-minded folk who carried the "sure-thing" 
safely tucked away in their pockets. Dreamers of for- 
tune, these, lulled by the music of the trot. And out of 
the vague intonation of all this multitude there came, 
here and there, like a breath of fresh air, the glimpses 

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fluttering, elegant, of luxurious carriages carrying 
radiantly dressed ladies, the luminous note of undu- 
lating ribbons and plumes standing out like a spring- 
like, feminine bouquet against the black mass of those 
absorbed by the passion of sport. ..." 

During the races the carriages lined up along the 
curb facing the middle of the street, for blocks, with 
mounted police at intervals like cavalry officers. The 
instant the races were over this stiff line kaleidoscoped 
again and everybody pelted away toward the Avenida 
Sarmiento, there to file round and round between the 
palms and indulge that passion for staring which is 
one of the common heritages of city crowds. At rare 
intervals in this "Corso" passed a family — in black, 
generally, — with faces fashioned after the same patri- 
cian model, marvellously white skin, vivid black hair, 
delicate eyebrows and great dark eyes. There is an 
expression in such faces which reminds one grotesquely 
of a bloodhound, with his dome-shaped head and 
drooping melancholy eyes; sad faces — even the little 
girls with their quaintly barbarous tiny diamond ear- 
rings and the little boys in patent-leather sailor hats — 
as if sorrowing, perhaps, for the forgotten days of 
Spain. More often, however, it was but a procession 
of expensive human upholstery — smug fathers, con- 
tented-looking matrons, like Italian orange-women 
fallen into a fortune, crowding four lines deep, in a 
sort of splendid chaos. And the young engineer in 
from the "bush" and the steamship's under-officers, 
roaming hungrily about in their hired victorias, drink 

220 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

this in, too, and tell you afterward — and with some 
truth — that there is nothing like it in the world. 

Before Buenos Aires covered as much ground as it 
does to-day, the Calle Florida, now the polite down- 
town shopping street, was the scene of the carriage 
parade and, with characteristic conservatism — as if in 
New York, carriages should go down from Central 
Park at twilight and file solemnly through Twenty- 
third Street — the parade ends in this business street. 
It is only wide enough for two rows of carriages, 
so close together that the occupants might almost 
shake hands with one another or with the spectators 
on the sidewalk, and when festooned with lights, as it 
was when Mr. Root was there, it glares and sparkles 
like a ball-room. And in this glare, from the lights 
overhead, from milliners' and pastry cooks' windows, 
the strange procession flows jerkily by — powdery old 
ladies, blinking in the shelter of their broughams, 
tourists and sailors, quiet mothers with their children, 
the chanteuses from the music halls lolling back in their 
victorias and lavishing smiles. The young men smile 
back, with cynical good humor, twirling their black 
moustaches the while, and the line flows on past the 
Grand Hotel, the Jockey Club, past the "Sportsman" 
and into the Avenida again, round and round, till 
dinner time comes, and it melts away. 

This witching hour having arrived, what vague pre- 
monitory rays of the evening's possibilities begin to 
flash up from behind the imminent horizon of food? 
Imagine yourself stepping to the newspaper kiosk at 

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the corner of Florida Street and the Avenida and 
there running an eye down the column of theatre 
announcements. First of all, of course, is the opera, 
which means, socially, just what it does at home, ex- 
cept that " grand" opera, comes in the south-equatorial 
winter — that is to say, in July and August. German 
music is not much enjoyed, but all the familiar Italian 
and French operas are given, and the Italian companies 
generally contain at least a few thrifty singers who are 
to be heard in New York a few months later on. The 
house is not so large as our Metropolitan, and the 
spectacle not so much "grand" as it is pretty — linda 
and preciosa, as the South Americans say. Every- 
thing, even to the scene-shifters in their white 
stockings and powdered wigs, seems arranged to 
make a neat and well-ordered picture. The two lower 
tiers of boxes which enclose the parquet in +he conti- 
nental fashion, leaving no place for "standees," are 
adorned by the members of the Families. The third 
tier is one black-and-white horseshoe of men; the 
fourth, women, most of whom are in street dress, and 
in the balcony above are herded the encore fiends, 
hissers and general trouble-makers. The boxes of the 
two lower tiers are shallower and more open than those 
in the Metropolitan and the ladies who seem younger 
than our veteran houris, sit close together, much as 
though they were in the front row of the balcony. 
All seem to be acquainted, the red and gold of the 
walls enriches this vivacious horseshoe like the hang- 
ings behind a portrait, and there is about the whole 

222 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

something at once brilliant and all-in-the-family which 
is charming to see. 

After the opera season is over, and often during it, 
less ambitious opera may be heard at various theatres. 
The San Martin, for instance, announces the opening 
to-morrow evening of its season of French opera- 
comique; in another fortnight the Teatro Marconi will 
have an Italian company in a repertoire of thirty 
operas; the Opera itself is presently to be turned 
over to a George Edwardes' company for twenty per- 
formances of musical comedy. Here, too, on Sunday 
evening next, the Italian actress, Tina di Lorenzo, 
begins her Buenos Aires engagement with "Magda." 
To-night, at the Odeon Mme. Suzanne Despres, with 
Mme. Larparcerie-Richepin and a Paris company play 
"Denise"; at the Politeama Argentino — a sort of 
Hammerstein's — Fregoli, the lightning-change man, 
gives his farewell performance; at the Teatro Nacio- 
nal, Sefior Podesta's Argentine company presents sev- 
eral one-act Argentine plays, and so on down a list in- 
cluding Italian farce, Spanish zarzuelas, a boy musical- 
prodigy at Prince George's Hall, and even an indoor 
circus at the Coliseo Argentino of Mr. Frank Brown. 
A great fuss is being made, you will observe, over the 
coming visit of Otero. 

This interesting lady had just sailed when I was in 
Buenos Aires, and on all the bill-boards, in gigantic 
handwriting, was scrawle.d the impressive sentence: 
" Je suis partie avec ma compagnie — Otero." When her 
ship touched at Teneriffe this was changed to "J'arri- 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

verai le vingt-trois — Otero," and when she reached 
Montevideo, a night's journey from the metropolis, all 
the blank walls and bill-boards bore, above her signa- 
ture, the single orphic word "Demain!" I was told 
afterward that in spite of her inspired press-agent 
la bella Otero's visit fell quite flat. 

It is, indeed, not a public altogether easy to please. 
It is satisfied with crude " productions," differing from 
what is demanded in London or New York just as a 
" Merchant of Venice" put on by Novelli differs from 
that put on by Mr. Sothern. But they have a critical 
instinct common to Latins, the great continental artists 
are as likely to visit the Argentine as the States, and 
many who do not come to America at all, but are of 
all but the first rank in their own country, visit 
Buenos Aires regularly and present European suc- 
cesses long before they are seen in New York. 

Here in Buenos Aires, South American literariness is 
stiffened and sharpened by a modern tendency toward 
realism and the scientific point of view. It shows in 
criticism as well as in political editorials. " When" — to 
quote a typical comment which I ran across in the 
"Nation" one day — "the author busies himself in con- 
structing artificial decorations, fanciful and false, 
whose unreality no one can explain, it is impossible to 
build anything solid and durable. You will have 
precious miniatures, painstaking engravings which will 
delight the quintessential taste of dilettantes, but never 
those great pieces of work which compel universal 
admiration. In the literature of our country there are 

224 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

too many of these works of ephemeral brilliance and 
circumscribed merit. And we shall presently demon- 
strate why the time has come. ..." 

After encountering a point of view so sane and un- 
Caribbean, it was especially interesting to see a play 
written by a South American on a South American 
subject — the four-act drama "Chacabuco" by Alberto 
del Solar — and to read what the reviewers said about 
it the next morning. Chacabuco was a decisive battle 
in the war for independence. It was not a very good 
play, but no worse than our own military dramas, 
and by changing Chacabuco to Lexington and the 
Andes to New England farms, it could, I dare say, 
be transferred to Broadway with average success. 
The curtain rose on an Andean camp, the snowy Cor- 
dilleras in the background, to the right, soldiers sitting 
round a fire, to the left women working over clothing 
and bandages and a militant priest hammering on an 
anvil. There were bugle calls and troops marching 
across the back-drop, and the scene ended with a really 
admirable illusion of a vista of lighted tents. In the 
second and third acts, showing interiors in Santiago, 
the wicked Royalist general discovered papers show- 
ing that the hero and the heroine had been communi- 
cating with General San Martin and he threw the two 
into prison. A word from the lady would have set 
them both free, but she behaved as a heroine should, 
and in the last act Chacabuco was fought off stage and 
the patriot army rushed in just in time to rescue the 
two lovers, while the sun of a new day rose jerkily up 

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the back-drop. There were clouds, too, breaking 
away one after another, and even a tiny, marching 
army silhouetted against them and moving across the 
horizon like a child's train of cars. The piece was such 
a straight appeal to gallery patriotism that the Latin- 
American of our popular misconception would have 
swallowed it with unthinking avidity, yet it was not 
so received either by the audience or the critics next 
day. 

" According," said the "Prensa," " to the assertions 
of the author and the programme, this is an historical 
drama. Properly speaking, it is a love story, which 
unrolls across a long series of episodes of the campaign 
fought by the army of the Andes. Chacabuco suggests 
mighty forces. It is a focus of martial glory which is 
lit from afar, from very far, by the principal episode of 
this drama of Del Solar. It would be very hard to tell 
the story, following all the threads from the first to the 
fourth act, because the anecdote, the basis of any dra- 
matic work, has been sacrificed to the exigencies of a 
brilliant mise en scene. As an historical drama, indeed, 
it doesn't exist, and the solemn matron of history has 
only lent a few trifles of her household furniture which 
are juggled into those polychromatic ' effects' which 
satisfy the easy public. ... All of the first act, with 
the exception of the costumes and scenery, was a la- 
mentable reduction of men and things. The appear- 
ance of San Martin marching with a regular step as if 
he were behind a hearse had no logical explanation nor 
truth to history. Frankly, it was a scene of mario- 

226 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

nettes, unnecessary to the principal anecdote, which, 
reduced to its proper proportions and worked out, 
might, with its valiant, persecuted hero and its Portia- 
like heroine, serve as the basis of a work of poetry and 
real dramatic dignity. . . ." 

It was on one of these evenings — the Hon. Elihu 
Root having arrived that afternoon — that a perform- 
ance, far more brilliant than those of the theatre, was 
played in the streets by the Bonarenses themselves. 

What that splendid junket meant to South Americans 
— not to countries in the abstract but the men inside 
the dress uniforms and under the top hats, and to their 
wives and sisters and daughters — what an all-pervading 
thing it was for weeks and weeks — I doubt if even Mr. 
Root himself could appreciate, wafted, as he was, from 
capital to capital, with bands playing, lancers clatter- 
ing in front and behind down endless vistas of oratory 
and champagne. It was those of us who happened to 
be travelling in the other direction, who saw this side, 
who started where he was to finish, and all the way 
along saw, so to speak, the furniture being dusted and 
the pies going into the oven, and heard the rumble 
of his coming from afar. What streets were paved, 
buildings and ball dresses rushed to completion ; what 
armies of dress-makers, livery men, florists, hair- 
dressers, and pastry cooks might date their calendars 
from the year El Ministro norte americano came to 
town! 

Many weeks before Mr. Root was expected in Peru 
or Colombia, in the littlest papers of little coast towns 

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where the steamers stop to lighter a few tons of freight, 
quaint sheets with their few sentences of cable news, 
each artfully distributed under a great black head 
spelling the name of the country from which it came — 
Inglaterra, Rusia, Estados Unidos, Italia and the rest — 
you could find each day three things. There was a 
paragraph about the Duma — for all that it gave of the 
conditions in Russia that ill-starred body might have 
been some strange bird; one equally vague, about the 
carnes conservadas and the troubles at home over pre- 
served beef, and then, always, the last word about Mr. 
Root. Who would accompany him, who would meet 
him, when he would probably come; new furniture 
from France had been ordered for his quarters in Rio, 
the Minister of So-and-So was planning a grand ball 
in his honor in Santiago — down through Mexico on the 
Galveston cable, up from Chile and Argentina, half- 
way round the world by way of Europe, these little bits 
of gossip came sometimes almost the only whisper from 
the big outside world. 

In Santiago, more than a month before Mr. Root 
was expected, one of the afternoon papers bore on its 
front page this advertisement : 

CON OCASION DEL 

GRAN BAILE EN HONOR DE MR. ROOT 

A las distinguidas senoras y senoritas de Santiago 

And the distinguished matrons and young ladies 
were then advised that at a certain shop in Balmaceda 

228 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

Street were laces — real Brussels, point, duchess, prin- 
cess, etc., acquired under conditions marvellously ad- 
vantageous, and now to be disposed of at prices cheap 
beyond belief — "inverisimilmente bajos!" 

A fortnight later, in Buenos Aires, they were worry- 
ing lest — even though the hair-dressers desired by the 
elite worked all the day preceding — half the ladies 
should not reach the costume ball before four o'clock 
in the morning. Furniture and hardware men had 
their auctions, remates Yankis; haberdashers, helped 
by the fact that laundries and dry-cleaners' shops 
would be closed during the three days' fiesta, stripped 
their shelves of shirts and gloves. The bills brought 
in to the various governments, the rivers of free cham- 
pagne, the handful of cigars intended to blaze on the 
altar of international brotherhood slipped into inside 
pockets in the quiet of the supper-room while the 
waiters looked the other way and the strains of 
"Quand 1' Amour Meurt" sighed through the palms! 
But enough — let's away quickly, ere we're below stairs 
with the muckrakers who have not yet descended on 
this happy continent. 

Mr. Root came to Buenos Aires from Montevideo, 
which is the capital of Uruguay, and just across the 
Plata River — at this point of its huge mouth a whole 
night's journey away. Montevideo might almost be 
called the Brooklyn of Buenos Aires. It has three hun- 
dred thousand people and the prettiest women prob- 
ably in all South America, but it is a drowsy, old- 
fashioned place, overshadowed by the bigger, showier, 

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metropolis. Montevideo took its distinguished guest 
very seriously — with, indeed, an almost touching 
earnestness and awe. For days before he came you 
could read, posted by the committee of reception on 
fences and bare walls with all the paternal zeal of a 
monarch exhorting his subjects, the following: 

EXHORTACION AL PUEBLO 

The Committee of Reception to Mr. Elihu Root exhorts the 
people of Montevideo to embody in the most solemn and eloquent 
manner possible their part of the tribute of homage which will 
be paid to this eminent statesman at the time of his arrival in 
our country. 

Gracefully to receive such an illustrious guest it is necessary 
to strike a lofty note of urbanity, for which, the Committee is 
persuaded, it may safely rely on the people of Montevideo. 

If such behavior constitutes in itself an expressive demonstra- 
tion of culture, it ought to manifest itself with special force 
when our guest is one who not only represents a great nation, 
which, etc., etc. 

"If we are not bound by the affinities of race and 
traditions to the republic of the North," the proc- 
lamation continued, in the equivalent of about half 
a column of one of our newspapers, "if our pasts have 
not been common nor our traditions and idiosyncrasies 
the same, the time has now come to join forces for 
the common good, to make the sentiment of fra- 
ternity the alma mater of our ideals, to harmonize the 
national spirit of each of the countries with the 
American spirit of all, and thus," etc., etc. And at 

230 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

the end the populace was invited to be at the dock 
when Mr. Root arrived, to help in welcoming him. 

"I confess/' said the correspondent of "El Dia," 
writing from Rio the night that Mr. Root made his 
speech to the conference, "that to-night, for the first 
time, I have felt germinating in my spirit a new 
pride: that of being American. And the conscious- 
ness of superiority, of dignity and of strength, which 
comes from this sentiment and which constitutes one 
of the greatest pleasures ["una de las mas grandes 
voluptuosidades"] that I have ever experienced, is due 
to the words of Mr. Root. . . ." 

Already the papers of Montevideo — huge sheets like 
blankets when unfolded — were filled with stories of 
Root and Roosevelt and the States. Our politics, the 
natural history of the trusts, and our literature were 
described and interpreted. One read with interest of 
"Enriqueta Beecher Stowe" and "La cabana del tio 
Tom" of Prescott and Poe and Irving, Enrique Wads- 
worth Longfellow and Guillermo Cullen Dregant! "In 
contrast to what one meets with in European litera- 
ture," said the kindly reviewer, "where all is pessimism, 
disillusionment, and sorrow, the literature of North 
America is alive with optimism; it views life good- 
naturedly, tenderly, affectionately, as if it had confi- 
dence in the future of humanity. Its authors, with 
rare exceptions, are not bizarre and violent, they pos- 
sess the rare virtue of giving delight, of soothing and 
comforting the mind of the reader — which is, with- 
out doubt, a sign of mental superiority." 

231 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

The biographies of Mr. Root, El gran canciller 
americano, exhibited him and his family on foot and 
on horseback, even contained those inevitable apoc- 
ryphal anecdotes generally found in obituaries of the 
great. One was told how Root had left home for New 
York to seek his fortune as a lawyer. His father desired 
to give him letters of introduction to influential friends, 
but the young man spurned them. "I'll look out for 
myself," said he. "I'll make my own friends without 
help from my family. I want to find out whether I'm 
a man or a mouse ! " Editorials headed simply ' ' Home- 
naje" acclaimed El Ideal Americano, the President's 
opinion of "the most skilful man I have known in the 
affairs of our Government" was quoted, and four days 
later, after a continuous whirl of processions, gala per- 
formances, banquets, garden parties, and oratory, he 
and his party sailed away for Buenos Aires, loaded 
down with gifts as though they had been visiting the 
Sultan of Sulu. 

In the height of the festivities a staid old citizen of 
Montevideo, after explaining that his father was a 
North American and that he was born in Baltimore, 
put both hands over his heart and assured me that if 
I were to perform a surgical operation on that organ, 
I would find one-half of it beating for Uruguay and the 
other for the States. At the time it seemed quite a 
normal and ordinary thing to say. Everybody in Mon- 
tevideo seemed to feel just that way. 

If Montevideo represented, in a way, the old Latin 
America, and received Mr. Root with all the solemn 

232 




The Avenida de Mayo, Buenos Aires. 





In front of the cathedral during Mr. 
Root's visit to Buenos Aires. 



The Calle Piedad, Buenos Aires. 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

homage and self-effacement which the master of some 
antique hacienda might show toward the guest who 
chanced to penetrate his isolation, Buenos Aires stood 
for the new South America, and welcomed Mr. Root 
as any great city might — splendidly and lavishly, of 
course, but at the same time with cheerful self-confi- 
dence, not untinged here and there with good-natured 
raillery and fun. The only thing that Buenos Aires 
worried about was to make Rio's celebration look 
small, and once the plans were made and appropria- 
tions arranged, the city — vividly convinced of its su- 
premacy — awaited complacently to see and be seen. 
There was no solicitude about "una nota elevada de 
urbanidad," nor "una expresiva demostracion de cul- 
tura"; that was left to the bigwigs on the reception 
committees, who were expected to look out for all 
such things. The populace looked on, commenting 
good-humoredly. 

"Within a few days," said "Gil Bias," "we shall 
have among us the right arm of Mr. Roosevelt" — 
alongside was a cartoon of the President, waving his 
arm in a speech, while from the right cuff, instead of a 
clenched fist, protruded the compact head and dispas- 
sionate eye of our Secretary of State — "none other 
than Mr. Root, Secretary of State, in the formidable 
land of trusts, multi-millionaires, and sausages. The 
illustrious Minister will be banqueted, acclaimed, 
orated at and tired out, all in four days. In four days 
the most fruitless of diplomacies will cost us thousands 
of pesos with which we might do many fine things, as, 

233 



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for example, pay the county school-teachers, build 
lodging houses for working men, pave streets, make 
sanitary the lands along the harbor." 

There were burlesque accounts of the reception of 
Mr. Root, in which the vanities of the local celebrities, 
and Mr. Root's own reputation as a man of few words 
and intense practicality were smiled at. 

"When they presented Belisario Roldan they told 
Mr. Root that he was the best orator in the Republic. 

"'Words,' replied Root. ' Breath of the wind — 
'pampero.' 

"'He has the voice of gold/ added the introducer. 

"'Gold?' said Root. 'Gold? Good metal! Good 
value, but then, paper money is all right, too.' 

"And he remained quite tranquil until Diaz Romero 
was presented. 

"'The Mercury of America/ said the Master of 
Ceremonies. 

"'Thank you/ said Root. 

"'Don't mention it/ replied the other. 

". . . At three minutes after eleven the Minister of 
Marine and Foreign Relations arrived. He saluted and 
said: 'God save Mr. Roosevelt.' Mr. Root answered: 
'Thank you.' The Minister continued: 'Have you my 
book?' and Mr. Root responded: 'Si, serior, tengo su 
libro de usted' ["Yes, sir, I have your book"]. The 
Minister then asked: 'Have you your table?' 'Tengo 
mi mesa' ["I have my table"]. And everybody was 
quite contented at having been able to address him in 
English." 

234 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

It rained the night before Mr. Root was expected 
and when the morning crept in it was still raining, the 
cold gusty temporal of the Argentine winter. The blue 
and white of the Argentine and our own colors had 
run together, the banners whipped and dripped like 
washing on the line. It took one back to New York 
to see the crowd go down the bay: a white Coney 
Island excursion steamer bearing what passed for the 
American colony; another, a free lance, careening in 
its wake; a launch filled with young men in oilskins 
and flying the flags of all the American colleges — 
young Argentines, who had been educated in the 
States. They looked exactly as though they had just 
come up the Sound to New London. There was even 
a newspaper tug purring about importantly with a big 
red banner, "La Razon — Diario de la Tarde" — which, 
as "La Razon" was one of the littlest papers in town, 
seemed an eminently sporting thing to do. 

The Argentine cruiser which brought Mr. Root from 
Montevideo appeared presently through the mist, and 
the fleet of welcomers drew near till we could see Mr. 
Root and hear the constant banging of the cruiser's 
band coming across the water. Then our band struck 
up "The Star-Spangled Banner" — only one who had 
had some experience with that curious national air as 
played by a picked-up Latin-American band would 
have recognized it, but Mr. Root had had that ex- 
perience, and he stepped close to the rail and stood 
with his hat over his heart until the song was 
done. Then there was a rather awkward pause. There 

235 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

was Mr. Root; here was a boatful of English-speaking 
people; only a stone's throw of water between, yet 
what to do? Meanwhile, the Argentine Alumni's 
launch was getting all the attention by steaming close 
to the cruiser and playing Mr. Root's college hymn. 
It was at this crucial juncture that the Impossible 
Person in the shabby top hat perched up somewhere 
near the walking-beam roared out "What's the matter 
with Root?" Every one — though extremely embar- 
rassed at this presumption— gave the usual cry and 
the Impossible Person, receiving some encouragement 
at last, at once demanded who was all right, and 
without waiting for a reply spelled out the words 
at the top of his lungs— " R-O-O-T— Root! " Some- 
thing like the shadow of a smile was seen to flicker 
across the face of the Secretary of State, and it sud- 
denly occurred to every one that, possibly, after weeks 
of rhetorical compliment which he could not under- 
stand, this unmistakably American greeting — the first 
he had received from the city he was about to enter — 
was the finest and most eloquent thing that could have 
been done. The I. P. seeing these feelings betrayed 
even in the eyes of those who had glowered upon him 
before, felt himself coming into his own. "He saw 
me," he remarked out of the side of his mouth, taking 
off his top hat and mopping his florid brow. 

The cruiser steamed slowly into the docks where, 
one behind the other, ships from all the world lay 
moored, covered with display flags. There were cheers, 
the crowd swarmed toward the landing-place, and the 

236 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

lancers and cuirassiers cleared the way. The official 
greetings followed, then the escort closed round the 
carriages and galloped up the dripping asphalt, the 
crowds running behind, cheering in the rain. 

It was interesting that afternoon — while the lancers 
and cuirassiers were clattering through the streets ac- 
companying the official visits, and everywhere buzzed 
the name of Mr. Root — to pick up an afternoon paper, 
still damp from the press, and to read things like these : 

"Mr. Root, an intelligent observer of political and 
social phenomena, will not search for the basis of his 
judgment in the . . . honors, exaggerated or not, 
which our Government bestows upon him. . . . A poli- 
tician as eminent and as keen as he knows very well 
that these international alliances are formed solely 
under the pressure of the needs of commerce and by 
the stimulus of selfish interests. ... If he will con- 
sult our statistics he will perceive that it is with the 
European nations that we maintain an interchange of 
products, the United States being our strong rival. 
Our cereals and our beef, our hides and wool, have no 
place in the United States— a country which produces 
and exports these same articles. . . . Let us receive 
most kindly, then, our illustrious traveller. But if we 
resist certain tendencies of the Pan-American Congress 
and President Roosevelt and his illustrious Minister, 
let him understand that we do so inspired only by the 
purest patriotism and the highest interests in our 
country. . . . Our statesmen no longer can shut up 
in a box, so to speak, the collective thought . . . and 

237 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

interests of the nation . . . modern means of com- 
munication often give greater efficiency to an experi- 
enced and practical commercial agent than to a pol- 
ished ambassador, master of all the arts of Metternich. 
. . . Let us be sincere; let us be of our own time; let 
us make a diplomacy of real interests, living real life 
with open lungs." To meet opposition so intelligent and 
unemotional as this, was one of the most instructive 
experiences which his journey brought to Mr. Root. 

Toward sunset the skies cleared, and all Buenos 
Aires poured into the streets, with the good humor 
which might be expected to accompany the prospect 
of a three days' fiesta and a splendid free show. Every- 
where there were lights. Florida Street was festooned 
with incandescent lamps, in the Argentine and Ameri- 
can colors, as though she had hung herself with many 
necklaces. Beneath this blaze trooped a crowd much 
like — except that it mostly spoke Spanish or Italian 
or French — a Broadway crowd on New Year's or 
Election Night. Mr. Root was being banqueted in 
the Government House on the plaza, and the great 
show of the evening was set for 10:30 o'clock, when 
the banqueting party were to emerge upon a balcony 
and watch the firemen march by in a torchlight 
parade. For hours the populace surged in the plaza 
below, proud to be ridden back into line by their 
splendid cuirassiers, shouting out Latin jests to the 
pastry-cook's men from the Cafe de Paris who pattered 
through on their way to the banquet hall balancing 
trays of wonderful quaking jellies on their heads. 

238 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

At last there was a great shout. On the balcony of 
the palace could be discerned white shirtfronts framed 
in a blaze of light, the bugles screamed, and round the 
plaza and past the reviewing balcony the firemen 
came. They marched like infantry, carrying torches 
and axes instead of guns. At the head of the line was 
a bugle corps which counter-marched and drew up in 
front of the balcony, where, all during the procession, 
it blared in shrill unison a curious wild march. Pres- 
ently it sent out a call, one of those wailing, eery calls 
of which South American buglers are so fond. Those 
who had passed the reviewing stand continued their 
march out of the plaza and into the Avenida's lights. 
There was a rumble in the distance, and all at once 
into the glare in front of the reviewing balcony swept 
the engines — steam up and smoking — hook-and-ladder 
and hose carts, pell-mell, on the dead run. The search- 
light from the top of the "Prensa" building, which had 
been swooping back and forth over the crowd, swung 
down with a fine Latin appreciation of the spectacular, 
so that it shone down one side of the square and 
directly on the turn just beyond the reviewing stand. 
Into this shaft of naked light the horses swept as they 
rounded the turn, every movement thrown sharply out. 
Not one of the drivers could see an inch beyond his 
horse's nose, but with a determination to do the thing 
as picturesquely as it could be done, every man of 
them sent his team down into that shaft of blinding 
light with as little hesitancy over the reason why as if 
he had been a trooper at Balaklava. 

239 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

The crowd went wild. The moment the last cart 
was past the crowd broke, and as if by prearrangement 
surged over to the balcony, roaring for "Meestaire 
R-r-roo!" "Viva Meestaire R-r-roo/" Those on the 
balcony waved their arms and said "Ssh! Ssh!" Mr. 
Root stood still, waiting, and feeling, one would think, 
very pleased with himself. The noise was so great 
when he started to speak that about all that one could 
hear was the conclusion of his half-dozen sentences: 
"With all my heart I say 'Viva the Republic of the 
United States! Viva the Republic of Argentina!"' 
The crowd caught nothing but the "Vivas" and the 
word "Argentina," but they understood that all right 
and fairly exploded with delight. "Que dice Meestaire 
R-r-roo! Que dice Meestaire R-roo!" a lot of them de- 
manded, crowding about as they heard our English, 
and when we translated what little we had heard they 
went galloping away, repeating it to each other like 
happy children. And if our taciturn and impenetrable 
Secretary may have seemed to be losing his equi- 
librium, to shout out such emotional things as 
"Vivas!" to such a crowd, one did not blame him. 
The sight of the blazing plaza and those' people — 
strange to him, unable to speak his language — roaring 
for him as they did, was enough to agitate a monu- 
ment. They could not have done more for him had he 
been one of their own, the commander of their coun- 
try's army, returning from a victorious war. 

There are about six million people in Argentina 
to-day, and well over a million of these — far too large 

240 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

a number for a city which does little manufacturing 
and for a country whose chief business is raising cattle 
and wheat — are herded in the capital. Of these porte- 
nos — the name by which the inhabitants of Buenos 
Aires have been known since the days when Argentina 
was a loose confederation and the inland states were 
continually combating the pretensions of the " people 
of the gate" — nearly one-half are foreign born. The 
remainder, however tangled their origin may be, are 
at least overwhelmingly Latin, and more and more 
Latin, with each year's immigration, must the general 
population become. So many float in and out, particu- 
larly the laborers who come over for the harvests and 
return to Europe with their pay, that immigration 
figures may not quite be taken at their face value. 
Such as they are, however, they show between 1857 
and 1905 a total immigration of 2,461,107, of whom 
nearly 140,000 landed in that last year. Of these im- 
migrants 1,488,084 were Italians, 507,853 Spaniards, 
176,853 French— that is to say, out of the 2,461,107, 
2,172,790 were Latins. Of the rest, Austria, Germany 
and Great Britain each sent between thirty and forty 
thousand, there were some 26,000 Swiss, 20,000 
Belgians and some 127,000 altogether from other 
corners of the world. There is practically no aboriginal 
race left in Argentina, and there are almost no negroes 
— nothing to correspond to that inert Indian and 
cholo mass which forms the bulk of such populations 
as Bolivia's and Peru's, nor to the mulattos and mes- 
tizos which so far outnumber the whites of Brazil. 

241 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

Except for a few Indian descendants — many of the 
capital's mounted police have the high cheek-bones, 
and hawk-eyes of the Southern Indians, and fine-look- 
ing fellows they are — Argentina, and especially its 
capital, is practically a white man's country. 

Nearly forty thousand Englishmen have made their 
homes down here and brought along with them their 
church and schools, their foot-ball and cricket and 
polo. English capital has always been heavily invested 
in Argentina — it was the depreciation of Argentine 
currency following a lavish issue of inconvertible 
notes in 1890 which sent Baring Brothers into liquida- 
tion — and to-day the railroads which web the pampa 
and carry one across the continent to Chile are mostly 
in British hands. The greater proportion of British 
colonists live in or near Buenos Aires — at Hurlingham, 
for instance, or Belgrano, whence you can see them 
hurrying in to their offices of a morning just as com- 
muters do at home. They have two newspapers, the 
"Standard" and "Herald," and the Phcenix Hotel, 
where some live and the newcomers tarry while getting 
their bearings, is almost as muchaboxed-up fragment of 
the British Isles as the Royal Mail boat that one steps 
into from the wharf at La Guayra. It is worth while, 
after such a day as I have suggested at the races and 
theatres, to step down the Calle San Martin the next 
morning before one's desayuno enthusiasm has evapo- 
rated into the Phcenix lounging room, just to see the 
British faces and hear the talk, and — figuratively 
glancing over the shoulder of some ruddy old gentle- 

242 



d 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

man buried in his morning's "Herald" or "Standard" — 
catch a few reflections from this little transplanted 
world. 

They're reading the home news, of course, for one 
thing — "the anxiety felt over Mr. Joseph Chamber- 
lain's continued indisposition," specially cabled and 
double-leaded; Cambridge's victory in the University 
match at Lord's, the Newmarket Meeting, and Din- 
nerford's easy win of the Princess of Wales's Stakes; 
the Henley Regatta — if the Grand Challenge Cup had 
to be won by a foreign crew, toward no one would less 
grudge be felt than toward the Belgians. They've 
always raced in the English sporting spirit, at any rate, 
and been welcome. 

As for sport, however, there's plenty here at home. 
Sixteen foot-ball matches were played off yesterday — 
Belgrano won from Quilines, 2 goals to — "a fast 
game all through, but science conspicuous by its ab- 
sence." Alumni beat Belgrano Extra 2 to 1 in the 
second round of the cup-tie competition, Estudiantes 
won from Barracas at Palermo, the feature of the 
game being the really remarkable goal-keeping of Coe, 
who went back from forward on account of his bad toe. 
The Captain's team won from the Secretary's in the 
golf match at Lomas — "the links in tip-top condition 
and weather fine." There was racing, both at Hur- 
lingham and Palermo — a huge crowd at the latter place 
to see the first of the three-year-old classics. Sport on 
the whole fairly good, though backers' backers had a 
bad time of it. Segura won from start to finish in 

243 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

grand style and "though the stable connection hadn't 
let her run loose — as the ticket to her name showed 
plainly enough — the masses were on Geisha, who ran 
creditably, but far from brilliantly, and was palpably 
on the fine side." 

Mr. Monsch avers, in the advertising columns, that 
his is "the only real English restaurant in town," and 
he offers as special dishes for this day, Monday: "Roast 
pork with apple-sauce, boiled leg of mutton with caper 
sauce and steak and kidney pudding." Miss Muriel 
Francis, Typist — can she be really real — awaits work 
at her office, 65 Congallo. The English Book-exchange 
offers Winston Churchill's "Coniston" — the subtle 
bookseller evidently hoping that many will think this 
is our Winston — and Mr. Upton Sinclair's "Jungle" — 
the last word, it seems, since Zola's "J'accuse." 
Ploughs and disc cultivators, white Wyandottes and 
Scotch collie pups are recommended and honest 
Messrs. Coghill and Sidebottom offer ten beautiful 
Shorthorn bulls, just imported, and three magnificent 
Suffolk stallions, to which — conveniently arranged for 
Spanish readers — Mr. David Calder adds "8 sobre- 
salientes padrillos Clydesdale" imported from the "repu- 
tadas cabarlas inglesas del Marquis de Londonderry." 

There have been amateur theatricals at Belgrano. 
All excellent, of course, but Mr. Brookhouse, "as the 
frog-eater in that exquisitely funny farce, 'Ici on parle 
francais,' was particularly immense." The Belgrano 
Ladies' Mandolin Club thank those who so kindly 
assisted in the children's dance and play held on Fri- 

244 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

day last, but beg to remind the editor that he neglected 
to mention that "figuring on the stage with becoming 
prominence were the allegorical personages — Britannia, 
John Bull and Uncle Sam." Mr. J. McGavin Greig 
sailed yesterday for England on a combined business 
and pleasure trip. He will be greatly missed by his 
Belgrano Rugby friends. 

The daily letter from Montevideo, a night's journey 
across the mouth of the great Plata, brings the news 
that the golfing weather has been wretched. The " first 
function given by the entertainment society at Vic- 
toria Hall was, however, a great success and listened 
to by a large audience, including the British Minister 
and his family." Mr. H. G. Morton sang "0 Promise 
Me," and Mr. Percy Permain of " yours" — so they 
speak of each other's bank of that mighty river — " cer- 
tainly a side-splitting comic vocalist of considerable 
talent, proved a tower of strength and was recalled half 
a dozen times or more for each song." 

Nothing in Buenos Aires interested me so much as 
its newspapers, and certainly in few things can it face 
comparison more confidently. Just what the "189 
daily and periodical newspapers" may be of which the 
statisticians tell — "157 published in Spanish, 14 in 
Italian, 2 in French, 6 in English and 8 in German" — I 
cannot say. The ones you pick up from the news- 
stand, in addition to the two little sheets already men- 
tioned, which are only valuable for their gossip of the 
English colony, are "La Prensa," "La Nacion" and 
"El Diario," and possibly "El Pais" or "La Razon." 

245 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

Of these "La Prensa" is the one best known abroad. 
When there is an earthquake on the West Coast or 
a war on the other side of the world or big news in 
town, "La Prensa 's "whistle blows and all the town 
within earshot knows that something has happened. 
If you are an Antarctic explorer, a famous scientist, 
or some other semi-public personage, "La Prensa" 
may invite you to occupy during your stay the lux- 
urious apartments provided in its building for such 
distinguished guests. If you are too poor to employ a 
doctor you can go to "La Prensa's" dispensary. You 
may take English lessons in its language department 
or use its library free of expense and if properly ac- 
quainted be invited to its concerts and lectures. Like 
its lesser rival of the West Coast, " El Mercurio " of Val- 
paraiso and Santiago, "La Prensa" is the property of a 
rich family, which takes as much trouble to maintain 
the paper's prestige as it might to develop a new 
orchid. Its office building, situated on the Avenida de 
Mayo, only a stone's throw away from the Calle 
Florida is fitted up as elaborately as a club. The re- 
porters have their grill-room, the proprietor his private 
living apartments — which he never uses — and the 
presses and all the rest of the equipment follow the 
latest European and North American ideas. It prints 
cable news from all over the world and fourteen large 
pages, the first three of which are want-advertisements 
set in microscopic type. The amount of advertising of 
this sort reminds one of the New York " Herald," whose 
position, indeed, it rather duplicates among the papers 

246 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

of Buenos Aires. It is the one of which foreigners have 
always heard, just as the New York "Herald " is gener- 
ally the only North American paper which South 
Americans know about. It is more entertainingly 
written and far more important editorially than our 
"Herald," however, and although it has less political 
weight than "La Nacion " — which might be compared 
to the "Times" — and is less clever and witty than "El 
Diario" — it is the paper most generally read by the 
man in the street. 

"El Diario" — whose courteously acidulous comment 
on the trade relations between Argentina and the 
United States has already been quoted — might be 
called the "Sun" of Buenos Aires. Of all the Buenos 
Aires papers, it is the cleverest and most entertain- 
ing. It was anti-American during Mr. Root's stay, 
carrying out this policy in its news stories as well 
as editorials, and by filling them full of realistic color 
and humor, yet never missing a chance to poke fun 
■skilfully at minor details — the medals some of the 
reception committee had scraped together, the won- 
derful hat, "dernier cri," worn by one of them, the 
tremendous solemnity assumed by every one — it con- 
trived, while being uniformly polite, to throw a light 
veil of ridicule over the whole proceeding. The New 
York "Sun" could not have done it better if condi- 
tions had been reversed and it had put all its star re- 
porters on the story. If the Honorable Elihu Root 
took the trouble to carry a bundle of Buenos Aires 
papers with him, his dry humor must have received 

247 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

considerable agreeable stimulant during the Charles- 
ton's long journey through the Straits. 

Midway between the news stories and the serious 
editorials of our papers are the cronicas — a kind of 
writing at which these Latin journalists are particularly 
good. In these cronicas, half description and half com- 
ment, they can expend that sensibility of which they 
have so much, and the way they do squander it, is, to 
the tongue-tied Saxon, perennially astonishing. Day 
after day this "flub-dub" — to borrow the slang of 
Park Row — which our reporters would spend hours of 
midnight oil upon and probably try to sell to a maga- 
zine — appears, necessarily dashed off at the reporter's 
unthinking speed, yet finished, " literary," full of 
atmosphere and feeling. From such a cronica, the 
description of the crowd going to the races was quoted. 
The same reporter's fine Italian hand, if one is not 
mistaken, is shown in this Agua Bendita Sin Bendi- 
ciones ,} (Holy Water that Gets No Benediction), which 
appeared one afternoon during the week of insistent 
mists and rain that preceded Mr. Root's arrival. 

"Insistente, fastidiosa, casi implacable" — the slow, 
clinging rhythm of the words, detached from any 
meaning, brings back those melancholy afternoons, 
when it seemed as though the breath of the pampa 
itself was drifting through the lighted streets and one 
could almost smell the stretches of grass, saturated, 
blanketed in mists, dripping with rain — "Insistente, 
fastidiosa, casi implacable, la lluvia envuelve hace dias 
la ciudad en la tristeza de su melopea gris" . . . The 

248 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

whole Argentine, it appears, was enveloped in rain. 
It had lasted days, was likely to last some days to 
come. 

. "'Maldito tiempoV exclaims the city, wet, ill-hu- 
mored, spattered with mud ..." Imperceptibly, 
almost, this purely descriptive introduction drifts into 
a practical consideration of the good such a rain will 
do an agricultural and stock-raising country and ends 
with the suggestion that if the President should write 
to the farmers, congratulating them on the temporal, 
it would be much more sensible and appropriate than 
most presidential messages. 

Here in "La Nacion"is a similar contribution, entitled 
"La Came es Flaca" (Meat is Lean). Our cronista 
begins with a description of -the crowded streets during 
the illumination the night before. "We felt," he ob- 
serves "a certain intimate satisfaction in beholding 
such a fiesta, which seemed to bring nearer to realiza- 
tion that which we have desired for so long, that Buenos 
Aires should be a great city, not only in population 

" La came es flaca . . . 

"This phrase was made more interesting by being 
pronounced by a handsome woman in the full vigor of 
life — ' la femme de trente ans de Balzac ' — who was talk- 
ing to her companion in front of a shop window, whither 
they had been swept by the crowd. 

"'And dear!' exclaimed her companion. Several 
people turned to listen, smiling sympathetically, but 
the two women, absorbed in their own ideas, went on 
as though no listeners were there. 

249 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

"'The kilo which cost forty centavos yesterday, 
I paid fifty for to-day and they say it's going up still 
further. } 

"'My butcher tells me the same thing. Living is a 
horror here ! One can't live in Buenos Aires ! ' 

"'Which doesn't prevent their spending hundreds 
of thousands on useless things — at least superfluous 
ones.' 

"In the middle of that kaleidoscopic multitude, 
apparently care-free and satisfied with the present 
moment, amused and animated by the spectacle, this 
conversation had a unique interest. No stage manager 
could put on the theatre stage a piece so saliently true 
to life, so full of psychological suggestion, and effective 
because of its very simplicity. For no one could con- 
vey to the stage the impression produced by this sud- 
den appearance of household cares in the very midst 
of the fiesta, in that whirlwind of artificial life ..." 

Moralizing on the lesson which certain types of poli- 
ticians might learn from these women — who showed 
how even a thing apparently so simple as housekeep- 
ing, required constant thought, not to be cast aside even 
in holiday moments — the reporter drifts into a con- 
sideration of the cost of living in Buenos Aires, the 
effect of recent strikes and boycotts and the sad phe- 
nomenon that, in spite of prosperity and the brilliance 
of the capital, prices of necessities are constantly in- 
creasing. 

"On this problem," he concludes, "the luminous 
torrents of the streets shed no light." Nor did it 

250 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

seem likely that the echo of such conversations would 
ever reach the municipality. And, after despairing 
somewhat over the fatuity of past legislation, he 
wishes that a new municipal regime might be estab- 
lished "into whose deliberations might enter two or 
three administrators like those whom he had listened 
to the night before in the Calle Florida." 

For life in the Argentine capital is not all lights and 
amusement and rather strident pleasure, and I should 
convey a wrong impression if, in accenting somewhat 
the note which differentiates it most obviously from 
other South American capitals, I should make it seem 
so. It has none of Lima's charm of antiquity, none of 
the land-and-water beauties of Rio, but it has some- 
thing else, made up of graceful compactness and finish, 
of vigor, sophistication and comfort. There are people 
who attract, not because they are refined or highly 
educated or have discriminating noses, but because 
they are extremely alive. Cities may do the same. 

Things are done well in the City of Good Airs. 
There are good things to eat, comfortable rooms to 
live in, places where a man can get his exercise and 
outdoor sport. After the tropics, the gringo feels like 
a man who has been hopping from foothold to foothold 
in a swamp and steps at last on solid ground. The 
creature comforts of a capable, wide-awake, well- 
arranged city soothingly envelope him. The cabman 
knows where he wants to go, the waiter knows what he 
wants to eat. The mounted policeman, in breastplate 
and horse-tail helmet, rides him back with the rest of 

251 



THE OTHER, AMERICANS 

the crowd and does it so quietly and with such sophis- 
ticated nonchalance that he promptly conceives a 
passionate admiration for that policeman and his 
beautiful horse, falls into the collective pride com- 
mon to all city dwellers, and is ready to declare that 
there is no other policeman so fine in the world. 
The streets are clean and the buildings which 
line them, however gingerbready their architecture, 
are held within decorous maximum and minimum 
limits of height. Everything is near at hand. The 
hotel, club, bank, drive, the restaurants and theatres 
are all within, so to say, feeling distance. And this 
physical compactness and neatness, this continental 
glitter and activity, set here, oasis-like, combine to 
give the whole a certain diminutiveness and snug inti- 
macy. There's a "little old Buenos Aires," too. 

Italians, Spaniards, French, Argentines, what you 
will — here they are, really living out what so many 
other Latin Americans dream. "Some day" — so solil- 
oquizes the man across the table, as you sit on a res- 
taurant balcony looking out at the blue Caribbean, or 
watching the droll pereza moving an inch a minute 
along a tree trunk or the lazy mestizos drowsing in the 
sun — "Some day, somebody '11 step in here and bring 
these fellows up standing and teach them how to live. 
They can't govern themselves and somebody else must. 
And there won't be anything here until they do." At 
other places and times you hear orators telling what 
the future will bring; how this continent is the pre- 
ordained home of the Latin race, which will pour down 

252 



THE CITY OF GOOD AIRS 

from crowded Europe to a new-world reincarnation. 
Well, here it is — and this is the significantly interesting 
thing about Buenos Aires — this prophecy fulfilled. 
No one has stepped in — rather all the world has — not 
as conquerors, but following the same laws which have 
brought Italians over to dig our ditches and Scandi- 
navians to our Northwestern wheat-fields. And here 
is a city, as Latin as Naples or Barcelona, all worked 
out and swinging along, strong, self-sufficient, and 
very much alive — the hint of what all Latin America 
may some day be. 



253 



CHAPTER XIII 

RIO AND BRAZIL 

Go rolling down to Rio, 
Roll down, roll down to Rio. 
I'd like to roll to Rio 
Some day before I'm old. 

— Kipling. 

When the wind blows the wrong way at Buenos Aires 
something happens to the River of Silver and there 
isn't enough water for ships to cross the bar. As long 
as the contrary airs hold the big boats lie in their 
basins, quaintly waiting, as at home they wait for the 
more mannerly tides. 

So our Messageries Maritimes liner Magellan, due 
to sail at nine o'clock, waited all that interminable 
day, while we, up at daybreak and drowsy from the 
dance of the night before, sat cooped up behind her 
rail, glaring cynically at the tintype men on the dock 
who insisted on taking your picture if you let your eyes 
rest on them for so much as a second, and then broke 
into a violent Latin sadness if you declined to buy. 
The reception to Mr. Root was at its height. Once he 
flitted past us, inspecting these superior docks. A 
squadron of gorgeous cuirassiers galloped to the land- 

254 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

ing-stage with him, dismounted and stood at their 
horses' heads while he was gone, enveloped him again, 
presently, and galloped away, swords rattling, horse- 
tails streaming from helmets, and brazen breastplates 
shining in the sun. Not permitted to cross the gang- 
plank, lest at any moment the waters might come back 
where they belonged, we tramped the deck; digested 
all the polite French notices, in which Messieurs les 
passagers were informed that vetements blancs might 
not be worn outside the state-room except between 
eleven at night and five in the morning, nor were they 
to appear at table without collars and cuffs, and they 
were prayed to cease at eleven in the evening tout 
chant, toute conversation bruyante which was likely to 
disturb the other passengers. 

Night fell, the lights came out, still there was not 
enough water to float us out to sea. The forbidden city 
became more and more a paradise from which we were 
shut out. Down in that glow which lit the whole sky, 
as Broadway lights it at home, we could see the Calle 
Florida crowded from curb to curb, a blazing stream of 
lights and people and polyglot talk; the velvet-footed 
broughams, the mounted escort galloping here and 
there — and here we must sit in that silent ship, listen- 
ing to water pouring from the bilge-pumps into the 
basin, and watching the "Prensa's" searchlight swing 
across the sky. We mooned off, finally, like spoiled 
children, whimpering because they were sent to bed, 
and early the next morning, when we awoke to feel the 
sea breeze blowing into the open port and saw the 

255 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

lights twinkling on the horizon's edge, just as they 
twinkle from the Coney Island and Rockaway beaches 
as one slips out to sea from New York, we were con- 
vinced that this was, somehow, one of life's tragedies 
and that we should probably never want anything so 
badly as we wanted, just then, to be back in that 
twinkling town. 

For three days followed the suspended animation of 
the sea, during which the Argentine capital remained, 
apotheosized in those retreating lights, a place gla- 
moured over and gay. Then, one evening, as we were 
tramping the deck, wrapped in coats and shawls, with 
minds keyed to the pitch of the metropolis and the 
brisk south equatorial winter, a softness crept into the 
breeze. It seemed to come all at once, as though we 
had gone out of one room and into another — the soft, 
melting, feminine breath of the tropics. There is noth- 
ing like it in our North; the nearest approach is the 
air that breathes up from the land after a summer rain. 
It plays quaint tricks sometimes, makes neat, well- 
arranged theories seem foolish and absurd, and sends 
men chasing strange gods. All that night it blew into 
the hot state-room — velvety and sweet, vaguely sug- 
gesting steamy, sun-drenched fields; still, indigo la- 
goons; forests alive with giant butterflies and shrouded 
with creepers and moss. The next morning land lay 
off the port bow — wooded hills rising from the yellow 
beach — velvety, misty-green. Then came a river, 
broad, brimming, slow-flowing, up which the big 
steamer wound. On the bank were huts of thatch, 

256 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

dugouts drawn up on the sand, negro women in white 
cotton slips, showing out here and there against the 
green. The wooded hills climbed into mountains, im- 
mersed in bluish haze. Above, occasional cumulus 
clouds hung suspended, like cotton fastened to the sky. 
And over all that heat and humid shimmer, and 
breathing across it that velvet, spicy breath, as of 
earth newly-washed with rain. The lamps and trolley- 
cars and asphalt faded away. Again we had entered 
the land of sun and laziness and languor. This was 
Brazil — where the coffee comes from. 

It is larger than all our United States and covers 
nearly half of the southern continent. From the rub- 
ber forests north of the Amazon to the southernmost 
parts of Rio Grande do Sul, measured by degrees, is as 
far as from the lower end of Florida to the top of Labra- 
dor; and from the Amazon's headwaters to Cape St. 
Roque on the east is as far as from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific. Ocean steamers run regularly up the Amazon 
as far as Manaos, and here, a thousand miles inland, is 
a modern city of some forty or fifty thousand people. 
Yet a line drawn thence 'cross country to the south- 
east corner passes through regions as large as France 
or Germany, which the map-makers mark with little 
trees as though they were ancients drawing charts of 
the Indies. It is a country at once old almost to the 
point of decadence and "new" as Alaska or the Trans- 
vaal. The lazy, lovely, sprawling capital has its school 
of fine arts and of music, its little Academy of Immor- 
tals, its erudite, solemnly lyrical gentlemen, who set 

257 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

down their reflections in French and describe their 
country's languors in words that fairly drip and flow — 
yet eighty-five per cent, of the nation do not know 
how to read or write. There is the strip of coast with 
its cities, and the Amazon, and within their embrace 
the vast, mysterious island — with forests, minerals, 
fertile lands, endless waterpower — a potentiality incal- 
culable. 

The two liveliest impressions which one receives on 
entering Brazil from the south, which still usurp the 
attention on saying good-by in the north to the blaz- 
ing white walls of Recife, come from the Portuguese 
and that implacable sun. All the rest of South Amer- 
ica is Spanish, and the gringo, partly Castilianized by 
this time, is promptly appalled by this grotesquely 
similar but, as it sounds to him, shambling and slov- 
enly tongue. Speech is always a mirror of racial char- 
acteristics, and the difference between these sing-song, 
throaty diphthongs and the precise, clean-cut Spanish 
seems to suggest underlying differences between the 
Brazilians and their neighbors of Chile or Argentina. 
The Spaniard is aggressive, fierce, volatile, decided, 
sharp; the Portuguese solemn, slow, bigoted and 
determined. The one — as the gifted Brazilian from 
whom I have tactfully borrowed these adjectives puts 
it — penetrates. The other infiltrates. This man, per- 
sistent, determined, and a little sad, was set down in a 
country of forests and jungles, under the implacable 
sun — the sun which grows the coffee, makes the African 
as sleek and strong and happy as in his native jungle, 

258 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

while under it flaxen-haired Germans, in spite of 
mailed fists and state help, drowse and fade, forget the 
poetry of the Fatherland, and succumb to tuberculosis 
and anaemia. It has had a great deal to do, in the four 
hundred years since the Portuguese came, with making 
the Brazil of to-day, and, whatever colonial adven- 
turers it shines upon, it will have much to do with the 
Brazil of to-morrow. With which overture we step 
into sun-washed Santos, alongside the stone river wall 
of which our big Frenchman by this time lies. 

Just over the nearest roofs, on the shady side of the 
blazing, white-walled street that meanders through the 
centre of the town, is the "Cafe Comercial." It is 
a plain little place, with a sanded floor and tables be- 
tween which waiters are always carrying little coffee- 
pots. In one is hot milk and in the other what comes 
very close to being the best coffee in the world. You 
drop down at one of these tables, on which little Sevres 
cups are always waiting, drop a tiny spoonful of the 
damp native sugar in one of them, wave a hand in a 
bored tropical way, and the waiter, without question, 
fills it, just as thousands of other waiters are doing at 
that moment in Sao Paulo and Rio and Bahia and 
Recife and other towns along this steamy coffee coast. 
Then you gaze out at the shimmering white wall 
across the way, watch the coffee agents — German, 
British, Yankee, Portuguese — bargaining with each 
other in the open street, hear, from behind the ware- 
houses, the hoarse braying of a steamer just backing 
out into the stream for Europe or South Africa, or the 

259 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

States, sip what seems the very distillation of tropical 
sunshine and luxuriance, and feel, somehow, as though 
you were at the very centre of the world. 

For, in a way, you are. The chances are a good 
many to one that the brew which warms the arctic 
explorer, wakes up the Kansas farm-hand, or ends 
some exquisite Parisian dinner, came in a gunny sack 
down the road from Sao Paulo to Santos — the small 
round berries " Mocha," the large flat ones "Java" — 
and was carried aboard ship on the back of a big buck 
negro. Practically all the coffee the Western world 
uses comes from Brazil. Seventy per cent, of the 
world's coffee grows there. In some years — such as 
1906, for instance, when nearly fourteen million sacks, 
over one and one-half billion pounds of it, poured 
out of Brazil — Asia and Africa together produce only 
about one-tenth as much. 

It is a land of coffee. Sweating teamsters and carga- 
dores, who at home would be trying to get outside the 
" biggest schooner of beer in town," drop in out of the 
heat for a moment at some little cubbyhole with a 
sanded floor, and slowly sip their thimbleful of black 
coffee. In Rio's great shopping street, the Rua Ouvi- 
dor, the merchants and politicians and journalists who 
flock into the cafes of an afternoon, do their gossiping, 
not over cocktail and highball glasses, but over those 
little white cups. They are so universal, even in shabby 
laborers' cafes, that I almost began to wonder if they 
were not prescribed by the government, like stamps or 
currency. When the train stopped at some way-station 

260 




Cargadores loading coffee at Santos. 







»*•: 



The new Avenick Central in Rio. 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

on the road from Sao Paulo down to Rio, the small 
boys who would sell popcorn or sandwiches or apples 
at home walked under the car windows with their 
trays and steaming coffee-cups. One drinks enough in 
a day to make the very solicitous ink of our hygienic- 
coffee advertisements turn pale, yet in the humid 
drowsiness this stimulant seems to evaporate harm- 
lessly. The natives are used to it, and the gringo's im- 
agination, charmed by what seems the very embodied 
perfume of the tropics, transmutes, whatever it is that 
coffee oughtn't to have, into thin air, and he swims on, 
serene, enveloped in food's humble poetry. 

Most of the coffee is grown on the uplands of Sao 
Paulo, a few hours' railroad climb over wooded moun- 
tains and along sombre, velvety valleys, inland from 
Santos. Here Brazil's Italian immigrants flock — there 
are over a million Italians in the state of Sao Paulo — 
to work in the coffee fazendas generally, and send their 
savings back to Italy. 

The capital, also called Sao Paulo, a city of some 
300,000 people now, is the busiest and most modern 
place in Brazil. It supports spacious and active trol- 
ley cars on some seventy-five miles of its streets, 
theatres and music halls, " permanent" billboards 
which amount almost to mural decoration; there is 
a large American school, McKenzie College, now in 
its thirty-eighth year, an American shoe factory, and 
in the early evening, with the orchestras playing away 
in half a dozen open cafes, the downtown streets 
have an un-Brazilian suggestion of Buenos Aires. 

261 



V 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

There are between fifteen and sixteen thousand 
coffee plantations in Sao Paulo, and were the laws 
which limit production removed, this one state doubt- 
less could supply the world. This very lavishness of 
nature has been one of Brazil's misfortunes. The 
Brazilian's tendency toward fixed ideas having petri- 
fied the belief that Brazil is essentially a coffee country, 
everything has been sacrificed to that. There is no 
diversity of crops, no attempt to encourage new ones. 
A little tapioca, rice, and corn, a few beans and po- 
tatoes — enough to keep the planter alive — this and 
the coffee. Forests have been cleared off and wasted, 
the soil exhausted and left, new tracts cleared, new 
virgin fields violated. 

All through what should be fat and smiling farming 
country, in neighborhoods long inhabited, one meets 
such depressing landscapes as Milkau saw in the open 
pages of Senhor Graca Aranha's novel "Chanaan": 
"The earth was weary and half-cultivated; the coffee- 
trees lacked that dark-green foliage which indicates 
vigorous sap, and were colored a pale green, made 
almost golden by the sunlight; the leaves of the man- 
dioca plants, delicate and narrow, oscillated as if they 
lacked roots and might be blown away by the wind. 
. . . One felt in contemplating this land, without 
force, exhausted, smiling, an uneasy mingling of pleas- 
ure and melancholy. The earth was dying there, like 
a beautiful woman, still young, with a gentle smile on 
her pallid face — useless for life, infertile for love. . . ." 

In spite of wasteful methods the crop is so much 

262 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

larger than is needed that the state must needs step in 
and try to lift itself by its own boot-straps by the 
"valorization" scheme of buying up all coffee offered. 
This preying on the land is only the inevitable inheri- 
tance of the old conquerors' ideal of conquest and 
spoliation, another of those archaisms whose sweeping 
out is the task of the Latin America of to-morrow. 

From Sao Paulo to Rio is an all-day's railroad 
journey, north-eastward, down from the cool uplands 
to the muggy coast. People generally take a sleeping 
car. Those who, as I did, go by day to see the country, 
find it not unlike a sort of Iowa or Indiana down at 
the heels, and toward sunset, wilted, weary, caked 
with dust, are set down in Rio. 

It is so perfectly possible to fall in love with the 
Brazilian capital that, having unfortunately taken the 
most effective means of not doing so, I feel it a certain 
responsibility to suggest how it may be done. One 
way would be to go "rolling down to Rio" on a Royal 
Mail boat, for instance, with a lot of pleasant people, 
and, directly on landing, pick out the pleasantest, take 
the cog-wheel road up the Corcovado, and thence look 
down upon what, from that giddy height, is one of 
the loveliest cities on earth. The Corcovado is a rock 
jutting over the trees, about two thousand feet above 
the town — so sheer that you look down on Rio and the 
blue harbor as from a balloon — down two thousand 
feet of velvet-green descents to the terra-cotta roofs 
and sun-washed walls and the wheel-spoke streets like 
lines on a map. Not one of our smoky hives, but a 

263 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

city of villas and palms and showering vines and 
flowers, meandering about and over the foothills, im- 
mersed in the blazing tropical sun. The cool, laughing 
sea envelops it, with what is probably the finest har- 
bor in the world — not gray, nor green, nor steely, but 
blue, and bluer yet in the sun. And all about in it 
islands — agate in turquoise — jut out as though the 
gods had tossed a handful into the water — one, the 
Sugarloaf, rising fifteen hundred feet to sentinel the 
narrow harbor gate. It is — as I heard an American 
say of the backward look toward Rio as the train 
climbs to Petropolis — as though one had been taken 
up into that exceeding high mountain to see "the 
kingdoms of the world and the glory of them." 

Another way is to go down, as people went to the 
Pan-American Conference in 1906, and, wrapped in 
the usual North American ignorance of Latin Amer- 
ica, and with nothing to dim the comparison, sud- 
denly have flashed on one the Aladdin's Lamp Avenida 
— built by tearing down a t wd - hund red-foot passage 
through the heart of the town — the majestic sweep of 
the esplanade, and all the other municipal wonders 
about which so many correspondents wrote so much 
and so feelingly, that I feel a decided reticence in vent- 
uring to say anything about this side of Rio at all. 

A third way — and of course this is the real one — is 
to spend enough time in the tropics to insulate one's 
nerves against our avid desire to do something; to be 
able to sit in a sort of Buddhistic vacuity and not 
feel that one is wasting time. Coated with this placid 

264 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

equatorial film, one would be ready to settle down in 
some airy pension, with a window looking out over the 
indigo bay toward the Sugarloaf and Nictheroy, to 
know and understand Rio. I knew a man who had 
attained this blest nirvana and after a fortnight's 
teaching, I could sit with him, silent and content, for 
quarter hours at a time. 
*^rP^' ( By£ft(f noees," I would mumble in a far-away 
voice, dropping in of an evening. 

( 'Buena 7 noces," he would murmur out of the twi- 
light, and then we would lapse into the cataleptic 
state, sprawled in eas)^-chairs, satisfied to watch the 
glow of our cigarettes. If Rio could do that in a few 
days and make New York's unconscious violence, for 
the first day or two after getting home, seem actually 
a joke, it is easy enough to see how Rio might fascinate 
one who had lived long enough there to get the tropics 
into his blood — until the heat and dust and smells of 
it, the laziness and throaty Portuguese, the very things 
that get on a gringo's nerves, would become like the 
lights of home. 

The way not to be wholly carried away by Rio — 
and this is why I began to describe Brazil by mention- 
ing the capital of Argentina — is to go there by way 
of the West Coast, to weather the tropics once and 
return to a "white man's country," then make the 
anticlimatic regression, and to find one's self set down 
in this dusty, stifling, ill-arranged town, with the viva- 
cious lights of Buenos Aires, a thousand miles behind, 
twinkling through a cool Argentine night. 

265 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

The spoiled traveller is promptly attacked by all 
those foolish irritations which a city man meets in 
venturing into the provinces. He is tireless in hunting 
out things to fret about. The language he abhors. 
Fancy calling St. John, or San Juan, Sao Joao — which 
he insists on mispronouncing "Sow Wow!" After the 
clean-cut Spanish — precise of all things — the throaty 
sing-song Portuguese seems mere slovenliness. All the 
just-around-the-corner-comforts of a city seem to 
have disappeared. Collars wilt like wax, but nobody 
knows of a laundry. Buenos Aires's cheap little vic- 
torias have given way to cabs more expensive than 
those of New York. Everything costs about twice 
what it did in the larger capital. Everything from a 
cigar to a railroad ticket carries — and costs— its rev- 
enue stamp, and you pay in stage-money made of 
wretched French paper that tears in two if you look 
at it. There is no really good hotel, lovely as is the 
view from some of them. The street-car conductor 
doesn't know where the post-office is, the postal clerk 
can't find one's letters, although they're lying in the 
poste restante, and the languid policeman, unable to 
understand pigeon-Spanish, merely grunts and walks 
gloomily away. In short, until somebody invites you 
to spend a cool mountain night at Petropolis, you 
are in imminent danger of concluding, during those 
first few hours, that this city of six hundred thousand 
people is a huge, hot, overgrown village, inefficient and 
half -alive. 

Unfair as such a judgment is, yet I am not sure that 

266 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

seeing Rio in terms of Buenos Aires isn't the simplest 
way to set it in its place and suggest its personality. 
For Rio is, first of all, a city of the tropics. And it is 
as such, and not for what it has accomplished in twen- 
tieth century utilitarianism, that it — and Brazil also — 
is most interesting. Much may be said of these accom- 
plishments — the growth of trade, the new docks, sani- 
tation, the new Avenida, for which six hundred houses 
were torn down and which now stretches for nearly two 
miles as depressingly new and perfect as the newest 
plaisance of our newest world's fair. There's the famous 
old Rua Ouvidor, narrow, dark, and vivacious, where 
you may see, as the saying goes, everybody who is any- 
body in Brazil. It was not built, but just grew, and is 
very interesting, but an antique compared with the 
Calle Florida. The usual 'banality of "electric lights, 
telephones and trolley-cars" can be tacked to Rio as 
vociferously as may be, the "Jornal do Commercio" and 
"Jornal do Brazil" print as much cable and home 
news as the best papers of Buenos Aires, but their 
huge blanket sheets and small type seem odd and old- 
fashioned compared with the crisp modernity of "La 
Prensa," "El Diario" or "La -Nacion." 

The same reservation must be made about most 
things Brazilian. Over all is cast a spell, the union, as 
it would seem, of that sombre Portuguese temperament 
and the tropical languor, and the present seems vaguely 
antique and old. "We are archives of archaic institu- 
tions with modern etiquettes," observes the author of 
"A America Latina," "a modern glossary designating 

267 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

an obsolete world" — and this comment on South 
American societies, in general, applies far more to 
Brazil than to the Argentine. 

Before the things seen and heard and vaguely felt, 
the endless procession of vague, unrelated things that 
baffle and allure — semi-antique humans living lan- 
guidly in the midst of a sun-drenched nature which, 
by its very luxuriance, might seem to have overpow- 
ered them — Latin sensibility tinged with African super- 
stition — vast forests with giant butterflies floating in 
the breathless air — negro coachmen in top-boots, such 
as Puss-in-Boots might have worn — dusky, velvet- 
eyed donzellas — palms, blazing walls and indigo sea — 
one loses interest in railroads and power plants and the 
things we do better at home. Brazilians must interest 
themselves in these things, for therein lies their salva- 
tion. If I seem to neglect them it is because it seems 
absurd to visit a conservatory full of orchids and spend 
one's time seeing how the steam-pipes are put in. 

By the same token there is a certain mellowed dig- 
nity in the Brazilian scene — the natural inheritance of 
the empire, and doubtless, also, a reaction of race and 
climate — lacking in the more energetic and modern 
Argentina. It was only in 1889 that good Dom Pedro 
—that kindly, cultured, old-school gentleman — was 
dethroned and shipped off to Portugal. It is only since 
1887 that the negroes ceased to be slaves. Brazil's 
foremost statesman, the big-necked, able Minister of 
Foreign Affairs who, as he moved amongst his slender 
Caribbean brethren at the 1906 Conference, looked 

268 




The Rua Ouvidor, the principal business street in Rio. 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

like the senior partner of some old firm of Wall 
Street bankers, is still called " Baron" Rio Branco. 
You can still see in Petropolis the house of the Princess 
Regent and her husband the Conde d'Eu, overgrown 
somewhat with vegetation and buried in sombre shade. 
Rio's great public library was started by King Joao 
VI, himself, when the Portuguese court was trans- 
ferred to Brazil in 1808. 

There is still a suggestion of the Old World and the 
grand manner. They have their Academy of Forty 
Immortals, their politicians are often pleased to prac- 
tise the politer arts. Senhor Joachim Nabuco, who 
presided at the Conference and who may be seen any of 
these fine afternoons driving down Connecticut Ave- 
nue in Washington, has written his "Pensees." These 
litterateurs may be, as Senhor Bomfim suggests in 
"A America Latina," "inveterate rhetoricians whose 
abundant works are taken as proof of genius." Yet at 
least they have a certain way with them. Pompous, 
grave, they go through the solemn motions. In spite 
of the vast majority who neither read nor write, Bra- 
zilians of the upper ruling class are probably more 
"cultured," in the narrow literary sense of the word, 
than our average men of the same class at home. They 
speak and write French as a matter of course in addi- 
tion to their own language, and most of them make 
fair headway with English. They enjoy and encour- 
age music and painting and poetry. Opera not only 
comes to Rio each winter, as it does to Buenos Aires, 
but they have their National Institute of Music and 

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their native composers, one of whom, especially, the 
late Carlos Gomez, has heard his operas successfully 
produced in Europe. They have their National Acad- 
emy of Fine Arts and a gallery which, I am sure, is 
visited and appreciated by a great many more people 
than ever surprise themselves by entering the really 
excellent one tucked away, upstairs, in Buenos Aires's 
Calle Florida. 

The annual salon was opened the afternoon we 
sailed and I just had time to look in before going to the 
steamer. An orchestra played with quaint dignity in 
the lower entrance, and within, in a humid odor of 
dresses and perfume, was a crowd — ceremonious old 
gentlemen with leathery faces, dark-eyed, sensitive- 
looking youths, nice little girls and their older sisters, 
dusky sometimes, white with powder and wearing 
dangling crescent earrings — such a crowd as I saw at 
other semi-public gatherings in Rio — not brilliant, 
yet with a certain quiet at-homeness and dignity 
often missed in the Argentine capital. They had the 
air of having done this thing many times before. Ev- 
erybody showed his little ticket, and, having none, I 
walked on until stopped by a guard with a musket. 
I murmured some foolish sentence about being a vis- 
itor from North America and instantly he smiled and 
bowed. "Ah, senhor!" he said, "Norte Americano!" 
and bowed me in. It was the open sesame which had 
unlocked so many doors during the summer — a Latin- 
American courtesy which made pleasing even some of 
the water-colors of the younger Brazilian Rafaels, with 

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RIO AND BRAZIL 

signatures splashed across their corners which could be 
read clear across the room. 

Pleasant human oases like this, the loveliness which 
is visible from the Corcovado or to any discriminating 
bird, Rio has, but of the stern impressiveness of a great 
city nothing. She lies there in the sun, like one of her 
own mestizos, indolently reclining, amidst palms and 
gardens, on the meandering foothills. Laxity and 
smiling indifference, bodily and moral, is in the air. 
From the bleak whiteness of Monroe Palace, where 
the Pan-American Conference met, the main street 
led through a region of Venetian blinds, from behind 
which at almost any hour — in French, in Spanish and 
Portuguese, in broken English — the passer-by was 
invited to come in. The same sort of a thorough- 
fare led up to this very Academy of Fine Arts, down 
which the ceremonious old gentlemen, their gentle 
daughters and little grand-daughters walked that 
afternoon. On the news-stands, side by side with the 
grave "Jornal do Comercio," lay "0 Rio Nu" — "Rio 
Without Clothes" — calculated to send a Broadway 
policeman bounding after the reserves. 

The same cheerful obliquity characterizes the Rio 
music-halls — it was the one across the street from the 
Conference building, as it happened, which was one of 
the few I saw in South America whose depravity was 
witty enough to furnish its own excuse. And that, I 
suppose, was because the company was French. They 
called their review "Pan! ga y est," and everything in 
the air of Rio was parodied therein. It began tire- 

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somely. The audience grew restless and a man finally 
rose in the back of the parquet and began to protest. 
He was one of those self-important, earnest little men 
who is bound to get his rights. Everybody could see 
that and they turned and encouraged him with grins 
and sympathetic murmurs. Holding his stick firmly, 
like the honest householder he seemed to be, he called 
for ''Monsieur le directeur" and having brought that 
functionary, tremendously agitated, out from the 
wings, he declared that, for himself and on behalf of 
the audience, he wished to protest. 

The programme had announced, "Monsieur le 
directeur" himself had promised, that they would give 
an entertainment full of liveliness, of a piquancy and 
wit. And look at this — these inane Japanese dancers 
toddling about in kimonos. Mon Dieu, Monsieur! 
This is unfair! It is not to be borne! 

The manager, suave and solicitous, lifted his shoul- 
ders and pressed his hands to his heart. Monsieur 
spoke truly. They had promised an entertainment 
full of life, of verve, of sparkle. They were desolated 
to have bored the audience. On behalf of himself and 
the company he would do everything in his power to 
please. Was it possible that the interesting things 
Monsieur failed to see on the stage might be found 
behind the scenes in the dressing-rooms of Mesdemoi- 
selles les artistes. . . . Would Monsieur but come — for 
he and the company prostrated themselves in the 
effort to please — derriere les coulisses and see ? What f 
Truly? Ah — a thousand thanks! Indeed he would 

272 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

come. Como no! Assuredly, yes! Enchante! Con 
muchissimo gusto! And forthwith the honest house- 
holder tramped round behind the scenes, the audience 
delighted, and not yet aware that this was part of the 
play. The curtain rolled up, disclosing the stage set 
as a dressing-room, and, sure enough, there were mes- 
demoiselles les artistes, just beginning to dress for their 
parts. The honest householder dropped his stick, be- 
came at once one of the most active performers, and 
as for lack of liveliness there was no further cause for 
complaint. 

Of the various manifestations of atmospheric laxity 
none is more interesting to a North American than the 
haziness of the color-line. This land of coffee and sun- 
shine is a land tinged with African blood. Of the sev- 
enteen and a half millions of people in the country only 
some six millions are whites. There were 750,000 
slaves in Brazil when the Princess Regent emanci- 
pated them in 1887, and there are neighborhoods where 
the negro problem is a problem only in so far as life 
may be a problem to Africans in their native jungles. 
You go ashore, for instance, to buy cigars at Bahia. 
It was a great place in the old slave days, before the 
centre of industry moved down to Sao Paulo, is a fine 
place still, with its tall stage-scenery buildings, painted 
white or pinkish or pale blue, the fronts — an echo of 
the Dutch visitation of long ago — often decorated with 
tiles. You climb the narrow winding streets to the 
upper town, looking out on the turquoise sea. Every- 
where are negroes — huge women, with enormous choc- 

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olate-colored arms, in white cotton wrappers and tur- 
bans. They come swinging down the cobblestones, 
squat beside their fruits and green parrots, lean out of 
ground-floor windows smoking fat black cigars. Try 
to take a photograph of one and her broad, shining face 
clouds over with fear of the unknown, and up goes her 
apron over her head. In the cool interiors of these 
houses, with spotless patios and doorways, white folks 
doubtless there must be, hiding from the sun, but one 
rarely sees them. Eighty per cent, of the inhabitants 
are negroes. You feel as though you were walking 
through a deserted white man's city held by a black 
army of occupation. 

About one-third of Rio's population are negroes. 
From blacks who might have been landed from a slave- 
ship yesterday the African tinge fades out through 
every gradation of mixed blood up to that of the cul- 
tured whites of the ruling class. There is, in fact, al- 
most no color-line at all; comparatively few families 
into at least some of whose members has not crept a 
shadow of the darker blood. 

There was a great ball one night at the Club dos 
Diarios, while I was in Rio, for the Pan-American dele- 
gates who were about returning home. This is the 
solid, respectable old club of the capital; all Rio was 
there, and if not as austerely magnificent as the ball 
given in the Palace of the Minister of Foreign Affairs — 
Itamaraty — a few nights later, it was yet a very repre- 
sentative picture of Brazilian society. There were 
some of the same nice old gentlemen and their sweet, 

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RIO AND BRAZIL 

gentle-looking daughters that I saw at the art gallery, 
and over it all that same air of homeiness, so to speak, 
of a society older, more staid and to the manner born 
than would have gathered for a similar occasion in the 
more brilliant Buenos Aires. The young men, as a rule, 
were sedate and capable-looking, and there was a restful 
absence of that Byronic-broker type so frequent in 
Buenos Aires, of toilettes that ambitiously proclaimed 
themselves "creations." If there were few to gape at, 
nearly all had ease and an air of doing quietly something 
to which they were accustomed. And gliding about 
in the waltz, as well-dressed and at ease and as 
charming as any there, were young women who 
showed, almost plainly enough to be called mulattoes, 
the marks of their negro blood. 

It is not only there, but there is so little prejudice 
against it, that the most scholarly Brazilians often 
maintain that the mixture has been beneficial and has 
resulted in a type better suited to the Brazilian environ- 
ment than either of the original stocks. They flatly 
contradict Agassiz and the other northern biologists. 
The mestizo is lazy, sensual, cruel, lacking in the power 
of concentrated and original thought, but they ask, 
How does this prove degeneracy? The type may not be 
ideal, but were you to compare it, not with the best 
type of Englishman or Spaniard, but with its progen- 
itors, the African slave and the lawless adventurer, 
would you not find it an advance rather than a retro- 
gression ? The mestizo, they urge, is not analogous to 
those mixtures which produce hybrids. There is no 

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physical trait which proves degeneracy, and as for his 
intellect, is the mule, for instance, any less intelligent 
than the horse or the donkey? To the solemn, deter- 
mined Portuguese the African has brought a cheerful 
sensuousness which, they believe, mellows and quick- 
ens his intellectuality, and they point to the fact that 
most Brazilian musicians and artists have been mes- 
tizos. Whatever one's own notions may be — and I 
am attempting no more here than to show the Bra- 
zilian point of view — one cannot escape becoming in- 
terested in opinions, apparently backed up by some 
evidence, startlingly different from ideas accepted as 
final at home. 

This Africanism has tinged religion and language, 
and contributed, undoubtedly, with the climate and 
environment, to produce that mingling of melancholy, 
superstition and sensibility, now gloomily savage, now 
acutely sentimental to the point of being morbid, which 
is common in Brazilian literature and poetry. Even 
without it people could not live under the brooding 
influence of such a land without getting something of 
its sombre mystery and creepy beauty into their blood. 
There is a passage in Senhor Graga Aranha's novel 
"Chanaan" so full of this Brazilian feeling that it is 
worth quoting, even in a shambling translation, and 
aside from the fact that it illustrates the sort of thing 
that makes a writer famous in Brazil. Everybody was 
talking about "Chanaan" — which is Portuguese for 
" Canaan" — when I was in Rio, and it was still so new 
that the distinguished Academician, its author, could 

276 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

be induced to read selections to appreciative listeners 
after dinner without the slightest difficulty. The most 
famous of these was the one about the "vagalumes" or 
fireflies. The poor young girl, Maria, deserted by her 
faithless lover at the moment she needed him most, 
had wandered for several days, jeered at and turned 
away from one door after another, until, overpowered 
with bodily fatigue and morbid imagining, she came 
at nightfall to a forest. Its gloomy depths attracted 
her, hunted animal that she felt herself to be, even 
while she shivered at the look of it : 

"Within that shadowy interior came and went 
enormous butterflies, azure and dark gray, in incessant 
glistening flight. Exhausted, Maria sank down, with- 
out the courage to enter, without the strength to flee, 
fascinated by that sombre and melancholy world. 
Her hands, limp and trembling, let fall the little bundle 
of clothes. Faint, friendless, frightened, wrapped in 
the darkness of night, she shrank between the great 
roots of a tree', and with dilated eyes, ears alert, listened 
to the murmur and whisper of things. . . . 

"The darkness deepened, issuing forth from the 
tangled verdure like the impalpable, vaporous breath 
of the earth itself. To her perturbed imagination it 
seemed as though all nature were trying to overpower 
her and crush out her breath. The shadows grew 
darker. Great swollen clouds rolled down the sky 
toward the abyss of the horizon. In the open, in the 
vague glimmer of twilight, all things took the form 
of monsters. The mountains, rising menacingly, as- 

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sumed terrifying shapes. The paths, spreading into 
the distance, animated themselves into infinite serpents. 
The solitary trees moaned in the wind like fantastic 
mourners about the corpse of nature. The night-birds 
began to sing their mournful songs. Maria tried to 
run away, but her worn-out limbs would not respond to 
the impulse of fear and she sank down, hopeless. 

"The first fireflies commenced, in the darker depths 
of the forest, to swing their divine lamps. Above, the 
stars began to sparkle faintly, one after one. The 
glowworms multiplied, in the foliage, imperceptibly 
appearing, silent and innumerable, spreading over the 
tree-trunks as if their roots had flashed into points of 
light. The unfortunate girl, overcome by a complete 
torpor, little by little sank away to sleep. . . . 

"The undefined terrors of early darkness disap- 
peared as the night grew. The vague and indistinct 
outlines now took on a limpid reality. The mountains 
stood out calmly in their perpetual immobility, the 
occasional trees in the open lost their aspect of gro- 
tesque phantoms. All things became impassive and 
still. . . . 

"The fireflies came thicker and thicker. Myriads 
of them covered the tree-trunks, which began to 
glisten as though studded with diamonds and topazes. 
It was a blinding and glorious illumination there in 
the heart of the tropical forest. And the glowworms' 
fires spread out in green radiance, above which shim- 
mered layers of light waves — yellow, orange, and soft 
blue. . . . 

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RIO AND BRAZIL 

"The figures of the trees began to stand out in a 
zodiacal phosphorescence. Fireflies encrusted them- 
selves in the leaves and here, there, and beyond, against 
the dark background, scintillated emeralds, sapphires, 
rubies, amethysts and the other jewels which guard 
particles of eternal color in their hearts. Under the 
spell of this light the world sank into religious silence. 
The mournful cries of the night-birds could no longer be 
heard; the restless wind died down. And everywhere 
that beneficent tranquillity of light. . . . Maria was 
surrounded by the fireflies which began to cover the 
trunk of the tree at whose foot she slept. As her im- 
mobility was absolute, they girdled her in a golden, 
triumphal halo, and against the luminous forest the 
flesh of the woman, pallid and transparent, was like 
opal enclosed in the green heart of an emerald. The 
glowworms, too, began to cover her. Her rags disap- 
peared in an infinite profusion of sparks, and the un- 
fortunate girl, clothed with fireflies, sleeping imper- 
turbably as if touched by a divine death, seemed about 
to depart for some mystic festival in the sky, for a 
marriage with God. . . . 

"And the fireflies descended in greater quantity 
over her, like tears of the stars. An azure radiance 
shone round her face, crept gradually over her arms, 
hands, neck and hair, enveloping her in harmless fire. 
Thicker and thicker came the glowworms as if the 
foliage were disintegrating into a pulverization of light 
and falling about her body to bury it in a magic tomb. 
Once, the young girl, restless, moved her head slightly 

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THE OTHER AMERICANS 

and opened her eyes. All about her the fireflies flashed 
their colored lightnings. Maria thought that a dream 
had taken her up into the heart of a star, and she sank 
back to sleep again on the luminous bosom of the 
earth. . . . 

"The silence of the night was perturbed by the first 
breezes, messengers of dawn. The stars abandoned the 
sky, the glowworms began to fade and hide themselves 
under the leaves so that their pale lamps, mingling 
with the whiteness of the growing day, became dull 
and colorless. In the tree below which Maria slept the 
birds began to twitter. The song became louder, 
everything began to be bathed in light. Noises could 
be heard, and a heavy perfume, concentrated during 
the night, began to diffuse itself over this awakening 
world. ..." 

No class of people, I suppose, falls less under the 
Brazilian spell than those whose day's work might 
reasonably be supposed to draw them into it — the 
representatives of foreign governments, especially the 
Europeans, accredited to Brazil. This Brahmin caste 
foregathers in Petropolis, that hanging garden, as it 
were, set on a mountain top, two hours' journey, 
actually, from Rio, and as far in spirit, as prejudice 
and diplomatic insularity can set it, from things Bra- 
zilian. Every afternoon suburbanites of the politer 
sorts take the steamer thitherward — very much such 
a ride as the Monmouth's passengers take from Forty- 
second Street down to the Highlands — except that 
Rio's harbor is generally still as an Adirondack lake, 

280 




w 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

blue as indigo, and shrouded in sunshot haze. A few 
old gentlemen play chess with pocket chess-boards, 
an ambassador's wife and the daughter of some Bra- 
zilian cabinet officer — herself a bit supercilious toward 
things Brazilian — languidly converse in French, the 
men talk coffee and the rate of exchange, and the 
muggy air of Rio blows behind. From the landing 
there is another hour by train, much of which is a 
climb by cog-road up three thousand feet to the cool- 
ness of mountain air. Above the tree-tops the train 
pants its way, at so steep an ascent that from the top 
on a clear day you can look backward all the way to 
Rio. These mountains are gashed and tumbled by the 
same power that put the Sugarloaf in the harbor, the 
slopes soft with the velvety green of the tropical trees. 
There may be as wonderful views, but they are few — 
this eagle's eye vision of wooded slopes tumbling down 
and down to the sea, the turquoise bay beyond, and 
beyond, in its golden haze, the sombre Sugarloaf and 
the walls of Rio. 

It was an inspiration of Dom Pedro's to build a town 
up here — an idea quite typical of the Brazilians of to- 
day, who built the Avenida Central and the made-to- 
order capital, Bello Horizonte. Ouro Preto had been 
the capital of the State of Minas Geraes, but the pow- 
ers didn't like Ouro Preto. There was no sign of a town 
in the valley of Bello Horizonte, nor railway into it, nor 
was it the centre of any industry, but it was a beautiful 
valley and forthwith it was made the site. Govern- 
ment buildings, theatres, barracks, water-supply — a 

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whole city had to be laboriously built. It took much 
money, and for several years the work had to pause 
while more was collected, but it was done at last, in 
1898, and the government transferred thither. 

Petropolis, with its villas and vines and gardens, 
reminds one somewhat of a German watering-place 
without the water — although a brook in a masonry 
channel does bisect the main street — a secluded, quiet 
place, so cool at night, even when Rio is melting, that 
an overcoat is often comfortable. Here the diplomats 
cloister themselves, and play tennis and dine at each 
other's houses and rack their brains over whether to 
hang the flag at half-mast for the death of the King of 
Italpazak, or all the way up in honor of the Queen of 
Holland's birthday, when these events occur on the 
same day. They see and think as little as possible of 
Brazilians and Brazil. One hears much about the de- 
nationalization of Brazil, but it seemed to me that 
most of the foreign representatives were doing all they 
could to alienate native sympathy and to keep their 
own countrymen away. One of the embarrassments 
of dinner-giving was that of seating guests so that the 
Minister from Ruritania or some other world-power 
wouldn't be put beside some Brazilian he would refuse 
to talk to, and the night before the ball at Itamaraty 
I heard one of these quaint gentlemen playfully boast- 
ing that this was the first time, since he had been sta- 
tioned at Brazil, that he had ever been inside the For- 
eign Office. 

At Petropolis and the neighboring Novo Friburgo 

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RIO AND BRAZIL 

Emperor Dom Pedro started some of the first of those 
German colonies whose development in the southern 
part of Brazil is the cause of so much hectic talk about 
the dangers of German aggression. The northern colo- 
nies were unsuccessful, their remnants make a bare 
living, and their unkempt cottages, with sickly, tow- 
headed children sprawling round the door, induce, 
somewhat, the same revulsion of feeling as the black- 
and-tan beach-combers of the Caribbean. In the 
South, in Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catharina and 
Parana, they have been more successful. Of the 
250,000 foreign-born Germans in Brazil — with their 
descendants there are probably nearer 400,000 — far 
the greater portion are here. Many of the towns have 
German names, German is taught in the schools, and 
the colonists settle down to stay and retain fairly 
intact their German customs. That the Portuguese 
Brazilians regard this immigration with uneasiness 
there is no .doubt. Their attitude is described at 
length in the same novel from which I have quoted the 
passage about "vagalumes." 

"Where," asked Milkau, the principal character, 
looking over a roomful of German colonists at their 
noonday meal, "where was that holy Germany, the 
country of individualism, the quiet shelter of genius? 
In all the faces was stamped one single thought, that 
of marching straight ahead, with every physical 
function in perfect harmony, in the accomplishment 
of a practical duty. ... In this crowd of Germans it 
seemed as though militariness and the racial obedience 

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and tenacity had ground down all that might have 
been beautiful and inspired to the dead level of a sin- 
gle precipitate. . . . Who knows," he mused, "if two 
spirits did not at one time struggle to inhabit the same 
body, the one a slave to material things, covetous, 
grasping; the other winging its way serenely, ever up- 
ward, smiling at all things, men and gods alike, and, 
disdaining base associations, creating, in the quiet 
regions of the ideal, the figures of poetry and of dreams ? 
Who knows how long and stubborn the combat has 
been? But the demon of the lower world has con- 
quered that spirit of liberty and beauty, and to-day 
this body has become torpid, without ambition or 
unrest, like a mass of slaves ready to devour the last 
remnants of the genius of the past — that divine source 
from which shines the light that even now illuminates 
them in their melancholy and devouring march over 
the earth. . . ." 

Enchanted with the land itself, however, and a day 
spent with the people who were tilling it, Milkau, a 
little later, still an incorrigible idealist, dropped to 
sleep, "happy and soothed by the mellow tropic night, 
in the midst of these primitive men, lying on the soft, 
strong bosom of this new land. His doubts gradually 
faded away and in his dreams a new horizon opened, 
expanding quietly, and he saw a new race which would 
know a happiness none other had experienced, which 
would repeople the earth and found a city free to 
all and shared by all, where the light would never 
go out, slavery never exist; where life, easy, smiling, 

284 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

fragrant, would be a perpetual radiance of liberty and 
love." 

But Milkau's friend, Lentz, himself a German, sleep- 
ing alongside, was an imperialist. And this was what 
he dreamed: "Everywhere Lentz saw the whites 
spreading over the land and expelling the darker race. 
And he smiled proudly at that prospect of victory and 
the domination of his own people. His disdain for the 
mulatto, for his languors, fatuity and fragility, marred 
the radiant vision which the natural beauties of the 
country had impressed on his spirit. . . . This land 
should be the home of immortal warriors, these fecund 
jungles consecrated to the glory of virgins, radiant and 
fierce. It was all a recapitulation of ancient Germany. 
In his exaltation he saw the Germans arriving, not in 
weak little invasions of slaves and traffickers, not to 
clear ground to help mulattoes, not to beg a property 
defended by negro soldiers. They came now in great 
masses; immense ships disembarked them all along 
the coast. They came with the lust of possessing and 
dominating, with the virgin fierceness of barbarians, 
in infinite cohorts, killing the lascivious and stupid 
natives who stained the beautiful land with their tor- 
pidity. They routed them with sword and fire; they 
spread over the whole continent, founding a new 
empire. . . . 

"But above the sailing ships, above the marching 
armies, an immense dark mass spread across the sky 
like a marching cloud, transformed itself presently 
into a figure, gigantic and strange, whose eye pierced 

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downward from on high, enveloping earth and men in 
a magnetic and invincible force. And Lentz saw, sus- 
pended over the land of Brazil, the black eagle of Ger- 
many." 

It is a picturesque vision and likely, perhaps, to come 
to any unsophisticated, climate-enervated Latin as he 
hears of the flaxen-haired invaders, these Huns and 
Vandals of to-day. But it is not a plausible one. 
German imperialists may covet territory in South 
America, but the history of German colonization is 
scarcely calculated to give Brazilians any immediate 
fear of denationalization. The "Little Germany" of 
southern Brazil has its German names and customs, 
but its people are not those of the Fatherland. They 
have lived half a century in a fertile land and done 
little to improve it. Their machines and methods are 
those of their grandfathers. And this part of Brazil, 
except along the narrow coast strip, is comparatively 
temperate. There is a power stronger than mailed 
fists and battleships — the implacable sun and the 
tepid, slow-sapping breath of the tropics. Men like 
Colonel Gorgas, applying science and unlimited re- 
sources, may make their environment sanitary, and 
the whole tropic belt may some day be the home of 
the rulers of the world. But that is a good many years 
away, and meanwhile, here in this same Brazil, five or 
six thousand Americans, Canadians and Englishmen, 
with unlimited money behind them, are putting in 
trolley-cars, telephones, power plants and building 
factories, while Italians,' Portuguese and Spaniards, as 

286 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

far as mere numbers are concerned, quite dwarf the 
figures of German immigration. There are about 
1,500,000 Italians and 1,000,000 Portuguese in Brazil. 
Although the Germans flock to the South, Rio's im- 
migration figures are not wholly unindicative. For 
the year 1906 there were: Portuguese, 16,795; Ital- 
ians, 4,318; Spanish, 4,074; Turks, 1,110; Ger- 
mans, 225; Russians, 195; French, 105; Austrians, 
101; English, 72; Americans, 29; other nationalities, 
119. 

There is, to be sure, a German invasion of South 
America. You will find its scouts in every wilderness, 
its veterans and garrisons in every shipping port and 
banking street from the Caribbean to Punta Arenas. 
You will meet its capable, plodding, earnest young men 
on every steamer outward bound. They do not, like 
our young men, spend their time laughing at the 
"dagoes," nor, like those more capable colonizers, our 
English cousins, see everything through the unchang- 
ing eyes they brought with them from Manchester or 
Glasgow. They sit tight in their steamer-chairs, study- 
ing grammars and phrase-books, and . when the ship 
touches the first port it is they who bargain for Jones 
and Tomlinson in the fletero's own tongue. And when 
they wave a good-by from the heaving shore-boat, it 
is not the gringo's "So long, old man — see you in God's 
country a year from now!" but it's to settle down and 
become one of the people; to live their life and marry 
their daughters, even although the child of a future 
generation may have a quaint kink in its hair. That, 

287 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

and not sky-scraping eagles, is the real German in- 
vasion. 

The improvident North American has not, as yet, 
learned to do these things. He will not bother to pack 
goods, nor subordinate his own to others' tastes, nor 
arrange payments to suit Latin- American customs. 
And a good many futile oratorical tears are shed over 
these deficiencies. Young gentlemen of Germany or 
England don't bury themselves in Latin-American 
wildernesses because they like it — at least not perma- 
nently. They go because they must, because life is 
too crowded a race at home. Germans do not pack 
ordinary merchandise as though it were spun glass 
merely because it amuses them, but because they must 
have a market and it interests them to have their 
goods arrive at that market in usable condition. They 
happen to know that South American lighters are 
merely flat barges, into which bags, bales, barrels and 
cases of all shapes and weights are dumped promis- 
cuously, and their packing is designed to survive the 
three or four such necessary ordeals, the banging 
against the ship's side as the ship rolls in the off-shore 
swells and the crash of the cement barrel which, as the 
ropes are loosened, comes tumbling down over fifteen 
or twenty feet of jumbled cargo to the bottom of the 
pile. When Americans need a foreign market as much 
as Englishmen do they, too, may learn to pack like 
Germans. Much of the lamenting over our lack of 
South American trade is like weeping over the lot of 
our prairie farmers of a generation ago because they 

288 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

applied none of the science of the Belgians or Nether- 
landers, and merely took what the virgin soil poured 
out at their feet. 

Meanwhile, because of her coffee, and neglecting 
rubber, cacao, and other things, Brazil has more 
tangible human meaning to North Americans every 
morning of the year than any of her sister republics. 
The ocean trail is crowded from the Argentine to Europe 
because Europe needs Argentine wheat and beef. No 
such trail leads to the States because we grow our 
own meat and bread. Chile's nitrates, Bolivia's tin, 
Peru's, Columbia's and Venezuela's cacao and cotton 
and minerals and sugar and woods are, thus far, 
trifling compared to that coffee stream. It is a rude 
awakening — after you have seen Callao and Valparaiso 
and rolled in the deep-sea swells off a score of West 
Coast ports, listening to the squeal of the winch-engines 
and the warning "A-bajo!" hour after hour, and be- 
gun to think West Coast trade extremely important 
because the sights and sounds and smells of it have 
become a part of you — it is a rude awakening to glance 
over the consular reports. 

Out of Rio harbor we sailed one afternoon, on one 
of those very comfortable little steamers which some 
of our more feverish orators forget when they aver that 
the only way to get to Brazil is to go to Europe first. 
It was sunset time and still. The Sugarloaf rose like 
a mountain of chocolate, the waters were indigo. Rio's 
hills had deepened to solid color out of which the city 
sparkled its firefly lights and behind, through the 

289 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

thickening haze, the dull red sun descended like the 
turning down of a lamp-wick. 

Northward we drowsed, seven hundred and fifty 
miles, to Bahia, where the wicked Brazilian cigars 
come from. Here we paused for cacao-beans and 
coffee, and in spite of the talk about scarcity of boats, 
ours did not carry even the coffee it might because 
the importers preferred to pour their's into schooners' 
holds like wheat rather than pay mail-boat charges on 
coffee in sacks. Four hundred miles more and we 
dropped anchor one morning in the roadstead off Per- 
nambuco. The steward went ashore for alligator- 
pears and pineapples and those of us who didn't mind 
a drenching for the green parrot which every gringo 
is expected to take home from Brazil. A big Royal 
Mailer, southward bound, rolled near us in the road- 
stead — the inevitable Britishers buried in their colo- 
nial edition paper novels on the off-shore deck — and 
our Portuguese boatman must needs circle her in the 
hope of getting another passenger. It was rough, 
time was short, and the French drummer who ex- 
pected to slip in a little business during the moment 
ashore hissed "Animal!" and called down on the old 
fellow's head the wrath of all the gods. At home he 
would probably have been dumped overboard, but tins 
was off Recife, only eight degrees under the Line. 

"Senhor es indelicado," sighed the old boatman in 
tropic resignation, and he steered imperturbably on. 

That was the last of Brazil, except a whisper of the 
vast mysterious interior a day or two later, when, a 

290 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

hundred and fifty miles at sea, we met the brown flood 
of the Amazon, still intact, pushing against the blue, 
like tide creeping up-stream. Then, as we steamed 
quietly northward toward the Barbadoes, over seas 
like swinging glass, with great cumulus clouds stand- 
ing up in the sky like stiff-whipped cream, flying-fish 
and whales and porpoises playing in the indigo water, 
and sunsets that were things to gasp at, I planted a 
steamer-chair by the rail, where the faint breeze blew 
least parsimoniously, and began to read Senhor Manoel 
Bomfim's "A America Latina." 

I chronicle this placid event not merely because this 
volume seems, in retrospect, an integral and significant 
part of that tropic scene, but because there is, per- 
haps, no better way to close these rather personal 
and accidental impressions than by mentioning, at 
least, the work of a Brazilian who has gone beneath 
the vivacious externals of South American life and in- 
terpreted them. For here, in the land of dithyrambs, 
was a man who looked plain facts in the face; a 
thinker with a scientific point of view in a continent 
where such a thing is very rare. 

I do not put forth his purely negative criticism as a 
final judgment, nor as my own opinion. Various 
works, one under the same title by Senhor Sylvio 
Romero, have, I. believe, been written to refute it. It 
is offered rather as a very animated "human docu- 
ment" — a proof that Latin- Americans are not only 
aware of deficiencies but have the intellectual courage 
to search them out and expose them. 

291 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

" European public opinion is aware that Latin 
America exists," observes Senhor Bomfim cheerfully 
in his opening chapter. "It knows more. It knows 
that it is a very extensive continent, extremely rich, 
inhabited by people of Spanish descent, and that its 
populations revolt frequently. Even these things, 
however, are seen vaguely. Riches, vast territory, 
revolutions and people, all is jumbled to make a sort 
of fabulous world — one without much enchantment 
because it lacks the charm of antiquity. Where these 
riches are and how much they are worth; how revolu- 
tions are made, who made them and where; these are 
questions which fail to define themselves out of the 
obscurity of that general idea — South America. . . . " 

Those familiar with works which treat society as an 
organism subject to much the same phenomena of 
heredity, growth, and decay as animals and plants, 
will readily understand Senhor Bomfim's point of view. 
Briefly, the book is a study of national parasitism — as 
developed in Spain and Portugal, transferred to the 
South American colonies, and showing in inheritance 
to-day. 

The conquerors, inflamed with the national ideal of 
the Iberian world, heroic adventure, conquest, and 
spoliation — parasitism, in a word, living without 
work, however, this prosaic fact was glamoured over — 
fell on the southern continent, sacked, exterminated. 
While a solid, healthy, political organism was spon- 
taneously growing up in North America, this system of 
exploration and subjugation went, relentlessly on. 

292 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

"Progress was condemned as useless, intelligence per- 
secuted as dangerous. Everybody explored and op- 
pressed. Production depended on the number of cap- 
tives and the cruelty of captors. The colony was over 
the captive, the treasury over the colony, religious ab- 
solutism and archaism over all. Wealth poured back 
to the peninsula. The metropolis beamed, fairly 
barked its joy. It had realized its ideal — complete 
parasitism." 

Parasitism so complete as this became, naturally, 
a congenital tendency. When the colonists revolted, 
the revolutionists, having had no experience in democ- 
racy, and obsessed by the Iberian idea of "conserva- 
tism," no sooner had thrown off the old dictator than, 
forthwith, they constituted themselves dictators and 
continued the same system under another name. 

Not mere Latin volatility, then, but, paradoxically, 
this ingrained conservatism causes South American 
revolutions. "Forgetting that conserving cannot be 
made anybody's especial active function, but that 
society conserves itself, independent of any outside 
force, by the simple fact that it exists; that it is an 
organism in evolution, a body in movement, total, 
continuous, integral, like a river in its descent, these 
conservadores set themselves up as dams to stop this 
normal progress." The revolutionists "are revolu- 
tionary up to the moment of making the revolution; 
as long as the reform is limited to words. To-night 
they are apostles, inflammatory, radical, inviting the 
people to combat: to-morrow, in tamed voices, they 

293 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

drone out circumspectly the counsels of balance and 
of prudence. Ponderous and solemn folk begin to 
appear. Everything is done to hinder the execution of 
those reforms in the name of which the revolution was 
started, to defend the interests of the classes conserva- 
doras." 

As a result the "state" becomes an abstraction — 
something imposed on society and in conflict with it 
... a " republic" has abstract reasons for being over 
and above the nation's happiness. A "'repvthlica' — 
through some intrinsic virtue in those four syllables — 
sufficiently justifies itself. They act, these republicans, 
as if a ' republica ' were a reality apart, whose role it 
was to confer on people an especial political nobleness, 
having which they should be content." 

To justify these fixed ideas and this conservatism, 
Senhor Bomfim continues, "all the formulas of com- 
mon-sense are called in — not the good sense inspired 
by practical experience and used every day in ordinary 
life — but a 'good sense' handed down by tradition, 
applicable to conditions which no longer exist. There 
are aphorisms to which South-American politicians 
consider themselves tied as by some solemn agree- 
ment, without inquiring into the relation which 
these aphorisms bear to actual things. . . . These 
men of the ruling classes live away from facts. The 
actual world all about them has no significance. 
They apply to problems of current national life the- 
ories taken from foreign books; or the keys conse- 
crated by that antiquated 'common-sense.' They 

294 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

mistake a symptom for a cause, ratiocinate to great 
heights/lose sight of the conditions in which facts have 
taken place. . . . The permanent contradiction be- 
tween the words and the acts of Latin- American pub- 
lic men is due to this parasitism, which, deadening the 
faculty of observation, causes them to lose their sense 
of reality and the nearness of life. ..." 

The same tendency can be seen in every-day thought 
and work as well as in politics. "In general," as Sen- 
hor Bomfim puts it, " these societies are archives of 
archaic institutions and customs, with modern eti- 
quette: a modern glossary designating an obsolete 
world." 

There is little real scientific spirit. " Verbiage, techni- 
cal and pompous rhetoric, myopic erudition, the pomp 
of wisdom, an affected and ridiculous gibberish, sum up 
intellectual activity. The verbose man is the wise one. 
Groundless generalizations, the literal transcript of 
philosophical systems and abstractions, take the place 
of observation. From this comes that mania for quo- 
tation, so general in the lucubrations of literary South 
Americans. Who quotes most knows most. Inveter- 
ate rhetoricians, whose abundant and 'precious 7 words 
prove their genius, turn themselves loose in many vol- 
umes in which can be found not a single original idea 
nor observation of their own. . . . 

"Brazil declared a republic, and, a constitution 
needed, they turn to that of the United States of North 
America, of Switzerland, and to certain pages of that 
of Argentina. Cut a little here, borrow there, alter a 

295 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

few syllables, temper the whole with a flavor of posi- 
tivism, and we have a constitution of Brazil! Through- 
out South America the intellectual world is full of book- 
ishness; the individual is such, whether or no, by force 
of tradition. Physicians, engineers, lawyers, critics, 
financiers, warriors, all are pedantic — spirits purely 
bookish, slaves of formulas, tied to the soporific illu- 
sions of the absolute. The prestige of axioms, of incon- 
trovertible phrases, is absolutely tyrannical. It is a 
fetishism. " 

In education and the arts South Americans exhibit 
the same detachment from life and " inability to follow 
social phenomena to their origins, by their constant 
endeavor to reap the harvest before the seed is sowed. 
They build in the Chinese fashion; refine higher edu- 
cation before they have established primary schools; 
turn out 'doctors' to float on the flood of illiterates. 
Instead of educating the general mass of the popula- 
tion, the essential element in democracy; instead of 
the professional industrial instruction from which all 
the rich and powerful nations of to-day have derived 
their economic progress, they establish universities, 
even German and French ones. (And why not bring 
over Dr. Faustus, the Declaration of Luther, and the 
Nibelungen Legends!) They import artists, to exist 
here, dying of boredom — or of hunger — in the midst of 
an indifferent public, which lacks the aesthetic educa- 
tion to nourish and stimulate them. . . . Arcadias and 
solemnities of a defunct preciosity, these; things born 
dead. Doctors, academies, institutes, universities — to 

296 



RIO AND BRAZIL 

practise inactivity on a society of irresponsibles; to 
stir the somnolence of a popular mass which is to-day 
what it was three hundred years ago. Necropolises of 
ideas, dead, forgotten, remote from modern ideas and 
aspirations." 

A summary so brief overaccents, necessarily, purely 
negative criticism. This, however, is the book's chief 
significance, this unsparing analysis in a continent so 
given to pyrotechnic glossing over. As for Senhor 
Bomfim's hopeful suggestions, none has more impres- 
siveness than the mere existence of the book itself. If 
anything were needed to show that Latin Americans 
are looking modern life in the face and getting a grip 
on it, it is shown, it seems to me, by such criticism, 
written not by an Anglo-Saxon student of politics, but 
by a Brazilian, the result, as the author says in his 
preface, "of a Brazilian's love for Brazil, of an Ameri- 
can's solicitude for America." 

They have had a difficult childhood and youth, 
these Other Americans. Sins of the fathers, climate, 
often, the dragging weight of an inferior race, even 
their nobler qualities — the Spanish worship of heroic 
valor, and that lofty disdain for the commonplace 
which so easily become Quixotic and absurd when 
forced to meet the material efficiency of an industrial 
and commercial people — have worked against them. 

Yet they, too, fought for their independence. They, 
too, are pioneers. The task before them, however 
different its surfaces may be, is essentially so much 
like ours, that the least a decently fair and neigh- 

297 



THE OTHER AMERICANS 

borly spirit can give is hearty encouragement and 
help. The Americans to whom — as we so eloquently 
demand — America must belong are not merely North 
Americans. Half the western world, this vast half- 
wakened southern continent, is theirs— theirs to tame 
and to train, theirs in which to build a future home 
for the Latin races, to work out slowly and labori- 
ously their experiment in democracy. 



298 



STATISTICAL APPENDIX 



APPENDIX* 

South America, the larger of the two grand divisions of the 
Western Continent, extends from about 12° North latitude to 
about 55° South, and from about the 35th Meridian west of 
Greenwich to about the 80th. Its area is estimated at 6,837,000 
square miles, or 391,000 square miles greater than that of 
North America. 

Along the west coast, from Panama to Cape Horn, runs the 
wall of the Andes, separated from the Pacific by a comparative 
ribbon of land and varying from fifty to several hundred miles 
in width. There are mountains in eastern Brazil, but these are 
so low, comparatively speaking, that the continent may be said 
to slope eastward from the Andes to the Atlantic Ocean and the 
Caribbean. In the Andes is the highest land in the Western 
Hemisphere, supposed to be Mt. Aconcagua, about 23,000 feet. 
Many other Andean peaks are over 20,000 feet. The highest 
navigable lake in the world is Titicaca, which is situated, at an 
altitude of nearly 13,000 feet, on the boundary between Bolivia 
and Peru. 

The principal rivers are the Amazon, which traverses nearly 
the entire breadth of the continent and is the largest river in 
the world; the Orinoco and La Plata, with its two great 
tributaries, the Parana and Uruguay. West of the Andes and 
between upper Peru and upper Chile there is practically no 

* The following statistics are compiled from " The Statesmen's Year 
Book for 1908," C. E. Akers's " History of South America," C. M. Pep- 
per's " Panama to Patagonia," " Brassey's Naval Annual," and from in- 
formation supplied by the Bureau of American Republics. 

301 



APPENDIX 

rainfall, the moisture condensing and falling before the clouds 
can pass the Andean rampart. 

Population estimated at about 36,500,000. South America 
was discovered by the Spanish and the greater part claimed 
by them for nearly three hundred years. A general uprising 
in the early part of the nineteenth century completely overthrew 
Spanish rule. At present, with the exception of British, French, 
and Dutch Guiana, South America consists of ten independent 
republics, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, 
Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. 

Argentine Republic extends from latitude 22° South to 56° 
South, and from the summit of the Andes to the Atlantic. Area, 
1,212,000 square miles, or about five and a half times that of 
France. Population in 1906 estimated at over 6,000,000, 
over 1,000,000 of which were in the city of Buenos Aires. For 
nearly three hundred years after the discovery of the river Plate, 
in 1516, the part of South America now known as the Argentine 
Republic belonged to the viceroyalty of the River Plate. In 
1810 the Viceroy Baltasar de Cisneros was deposed, in 1816 
independence was declared, and in 1825 the new republic was 
recognized. From then until 1880 there was more or less con- 
tinuous trouble between the Portenos (people of the gate), of 
Buenos Aires, who wished to dominate or separate from the 
confederation, and the provinces who were jealous of Buenos 
Aires. The result was the making of Buenos Aires a federal 
district and a strong central government instead of a loose 
confederation. 

Argentina is the fourth wheat producing country in the 
world. It is also the fourth producer of linseed and it grows 
large quantities of maize, flax, wine, etc. In 1900 it was esti- 
mated that there were 25,000,000 horned cattle on the Argentine 
pampa. There were over 30,000,000 acres under cultivation 
in 1906, nearly 18,000,000 in wheat. The total value of exports 
in 1906 was $322,843,841; of imports, $205,154,420. In 1905 

302 



APPENDIX 

the exports, in tons, were: wheat, 2,868,281; maize, 2,222,289; 
beef and mutton, 234,537; wool, 191,000; sheep skins, 30,180. 
The countries to which exports went, in the order of amount 
received, in 1905, were: Great Britain, France, Germany, 
Belgium, United States, Brazil, Italy. Those sending goods to 
Argentina, in the order of amount sent, were: Great Britain, 
Germany, United States, Italy, France, Belgium, and Brazil. 

There were about 13,000 miles of railway in 1906; 32,355 
miles of telegraph lines. Although nominally on a gold basis, 
most of the money in circulation is paper. The value of the 
peso is about forty-two cents American. Of the many com- 
mercial and agricultural banks, the more important are the 
London and River Plate, the London and Brazilian, the British 
Bank of South America, the Bank of 'Tarapaca and Argentina, 
the Aleman Trans-Atlantico, the Banco del Commercio, the 
Banco Popular Argentino, and the Banco Espaiiol del Rio de 
la Plata. / 

The Rio de la Plata, with its tributaries the Parana and the 
Uruguay, drains an area of 3,103,000 square kilometres — slightly 
more than is drained by the Mississippi. The mean annual 
discharge of the river is considerably larger than that of the 
Mississippi. 

Military service is compulsory for a period of twenty-five 
years, all men twenty years old being subject to conscription for 
from six months to two years. The regular army consists of 
about 16,000 men. It is estimated that about 500,000 could be 
put into the field in case of war. The navy consists of four 
first-class armored cruisers, four cruisers of the second-class, one 
central battery ironclad, two coast defense barbette ironclads, 
two torpedo gunboats, three destroyers, eight torpedo boats, one 
submarine, and various miscellaneous craft. 

Bolivia, named in honor of Bolivar, the liberator of northern 
South America, gained independence in 1825. In the war of 
1879 with Chile it lost its seacoast, and it is now completely 

303 



APPENDIX 

landlocked. Trade with the outside world is carried on through 
Chilian ports and the Peruvian port of Mollendo by way of 
Lake Titicaca. Most of the cities are situated on the high west- 
ern table-land, which, at the ancient town of Potosi, rises to 
nearly 14,000 feet. La Paz, the capital, with a population of 
about 79,000, situated at an altitude of 3,630 metres, over 
12,000 feet. 

Area estimated at 709,000 square miles, or only about 60,000 
less than that of Mexico ; it is the third country in size in South 
America. Population about 2,300,000, of which about one-fifth 
are white and the rest Indians and mixed races. 

Resources are principally mineral. About 15,000,000 ounces 
of silver are produced annually, 7,000 tons of tin and 3,000 tons 
of copper. It is estimated that about 5,000 tons of rubber are 
gathered in the eastern tropical section annually and shipped 
through Brazil. In 1905, 26,425,450 kilos of tin, 8,266,413 kilos 
of silver, and 6,708,295 kilos of copper were exported. The 
total exports in 1905 were valued at $29,533,047, the imports 
at $20,298,772. 

The great obstacle to economic progress is the difficulty of 
communication. There are few lines of railroad 1,430 miles 
of cart roads, 2,386 miles of telegraph lines. In addition to 
the mineral products, enough grain is raised for local con- 
sumption. Coffee and cocoa are exported. 

All Bolivians are subject to service in the army, the peace 
footing of which is about 2,500 men. It is estimated that 243,000 
men could be put into the field in time of war. 

Brazil, the largest country of South America, extends from 
4° North latitude to nearly 34° South, with a coast-line about 
4,000 miles in length. Its greatest width, from east to west, 
is between a point in the State of Pernambuco and one on the 
frontier of Peru, in longitude 30° and 58' West, the distance 
between these two points being 4,350 kilometres about 3,500 
miles. The area is estimated at 3,218,991 square miles, or about 

304 



APPENDIX 

as large as the United States, including Alaska. The popu- 
lation in 1907, estimated at 20,000,000, of which one-third to 
one-half was white. The capital is Rio Janeiro — about 
820,000; the principal cities Sao Paulo, 332,000; Bahia, 
230,000; Pernambuco, 120,000; Belem, 100,000; Porto Ale- 
gre, 80,000; Manaos, 40,000. Several other cities have over 
30,000. 

Brazil was discovered by the Spaniard Pinzon, in 1500, and 
a little later in the same year the Portuguese Cabral landed in 
what is now the State of Bahia, and took possession of the country 
in the name of Portugal, to which country it was subject until 
1822. On Napoleon's overthrow of the House of Braganza, 
John VI fled with his court to Brazil, in 1808. On the fall 
of the Bourbon dynasty in Spain, King John was recalled to 
Portugal by the Cortes. He left behind him, as Regent, his 
son Dom Pedro I who declared independence in 1822. In 
1831 Dom Pedro I abdicated in favor of his son Dom Pedro 
II, who reigned until 1889, when there was a peaceful revolu- 
tion and a republic succeeded the empire. Slavery had been 
abolished, 1888. A Constitution was adopted, 1891. 

Agriculture is Brazil's most important industry, although 
there are diamond and gold mines, large quantities of iron, 
petroleum, and other minerals yet to be worked. Over sixty 
per cent, of the world's coffee is raised in Brazil. Besides 
coffee, large quantities of sugar, India rubber, tobacco, cotton, 
yerba mate, cacao, and nuts are exported. 

Exports, 1905, $223,265,720, consisting in part of 10,820,661 
bags of coffee; 40,855,653 kilos yerba mate; rubber, 35,392,000 
kilos; hides and skins, 29,055,406 kilos; cotton, 24,081,753 
kilos; cacao, 21,090,088 kilos; tobacco, 20,390,558 kilos. 
The countries to which exports were sent, in the order of amount 
taken, were: United States, Great Britain, Germany, France, 
Argentina, Belgium, Uruguay, and Italy. 

Imports, 1905, $163,697,720. The countries sending imports, 
in the order of amount sent, were: Great Britain, Germany, 

305 



APPENDIX 

Argentina, United States, France, Portugal, British Possessions, 
Uruguay, Belgium, and Italy. 

In 1905, 17,072 vessels of 12,927,295 tons entered ports of 
Brazil. The Merchant Navy in 1905 consisted of 209 steamers 
of 93,345 tons net and 340 sailing vessels, of 74,475 tons net. 
All coasting and river vessels must be Brazilian. 

Total length railways, 1905, 10,408 miles, besides 4,000 miles 
in process of construction. About 15,500 miles of telegraph 
lines. 

There is little metallic money in circulation. The amount of 
paper money in circulation, January 1, 1907, was 664,732,480 
milreis. The gold milreis is worth 2s. 2^d. The paper milreis 
is subject to great fluctuation. 

The army consists of about 15,000 officers and men, the 
gendarmerie of about 20,000. Military service is not made 
compulsory. The navy consists of four sheathed cruisers, eight 
turret-gunboats, two of which are used for coast defence, four 
torpedo cruisers, one torpedo gunboat, one small cruiser with 
deck armor, one small sheathed gun vessel, and various miscel- 
laneous craft. 

Chile extends from 16° 30' South latitude to Cape Horn, 
about 2,300 miles, and from the crest of the Andes to the Pacific, 
an average breadth of 130 miles. The area is 307,620 square 
miles, or about 50,000 square miles larger than Texas. The 
country is extremely mountainous, and has no large rivers. 

Chile was a Spanish viceroyalty until 1810, when the war 
for independence began. In 1817 General San Martin, the 
liberator of the southern part of South America, crossed the 
Andes from Argentina, and at Chacabuco defeated the Royalist 
forces decisively. In 1818 the insurgents again defeated the 
Spanish at Maipu, finally securing Chile's independence. The 
Constitution voted in 1833, although modified from time to 
time, in its fundamental points remains unaltered to the pres- 
ent day. The war with Bolivia and Peru, 1879-1883, gave 

306 



APPENDIX 

Chile the rich nitrate provinces and left it master of the West 
Coast. 

Population, 1907, about 5,000,000. Capital, Santiago, about 
400,000; other cities, Valparaiso, 143,000; Concepcion, 50,000; 
Iquique, 43,000; Talca, 43,331; Chilian, 36,681; Antofagasta, 
16,253. 

The nitrate industry at present absorbs most of the country's 
commercial energy and produces most of its revenue. In the 
twenty-five years up to 1906 the nitrate beds had yielded to the 
Chilian Government, in export tax, $273,000,000 gold; for the 
next twenty-five years it is estimated that the export tax will 
nearly double this sum. In 1905 it is estimated that Chile had 
a nitrate supply still undug of 1,250,000,000 quintals. Chile 
also produces cereals, wine, live stock, silver, copper, and other 
minerals, and timber. 

Exports, 1905, 265,209,192 pesos (a peso is worth about 36 
cents American). The countries with whom this trade was carried 
on, in the order of trade importance, were: Great Britain, 
Germany, United States, France, Peru, Belgium, Italy, Argentina. 

Imports, 1905, 108,596,418 pesos. The countries from 
which imports came, in order of trade importance, were: Great 
Britain, Germany, United States, France, Argentina, Italy, 
Peru, Belgium, Uruguay. 

The shipping entered at ports of Chile, in 1904, was 11,756 
vessels, of 17,723,138 tons. Of the tonnage entered, 8,422,815 
tons was British, 5,220,223 Chilian, 3,462,077 German. A 
Chilian South American Steamboat Company, receiving an 
annual subsidy, with twelve steamers for general navigation 
and seven for river navigation, plies between the South American 
Pacific ports. 

Lines of railroad, in 1906, about 3,000 miles ; telegraph, 11,000; 
telephone, 16,000. 

Military service is obligatory; every Chilian capable of bearing 
arms, from 18 to 45 years of age, is liable to serve. In the first 
year, 20-21, with the colors; following nine years in first reserve, 

307 



APPENDIX 

afterward in second reserve. Permanent nucleus in 1904 con- 
tained about 6,000 men. 

Navy consists of one battleship, two armored cruisers, four 
protected cruisers, one training ship, three torpedo gunboats, 
six destroyers, and eight modern torpedo boats. 

Colombia, which once included what is now Venezuela and 
Ecuador, gained independence from Spain in 1819; split up 
into Venezuela, Ecuador, and Republic of New Granada, 1832; 
in 1858 New Granada changed into Confederation Granadina; 
in 1861 name changed to United States of New Granada, which 
was changed to the name United States of Colombia in 1863. 
Revolution, 1885, brought about new Constitution, by which 
the sovereign states became simple departments, with Governors 
appointed by President of the Republic. Revolutions have 
been almost continuous, and this, with lack of communication, 
has kept Colombia backward. 

Area variously estimated at from 445,000 to 505,000 square 
miles. Population, 1905, 4,279,674, including 150,000 uncivil- 
ized Indians. 

Capital, Bogota, situated in the interior, 9,000 feet above sea 
level. About 120,000 people. Chief commercial towns are 
Barranquilla, on the Magdalena River, and its seaport, Savanilla, 
Santa Marta, and Cartagena, on the Caribbean; Buenaventura, 
on the Pacific, and Medillin, an interior mining town. The 
Magdalena is navigable for 900 miles, steamers now ascending 
to La Dorada, 600 miles from the coast. 

Colombia is rich in mineral wealth, which is only slightly devel- 
oped; $300,000,000 worth of gold and silver was mined during 
the Spanish occupation. The annual output at present, of gold 
and silver, is about $4,116,000. Coffee, cattle, and rubber are 
also important. The exports, in 1905, from the port of Barrin- 
quilla, were 330,028 bags of coffee, 209,595 hides, 20,745 bales 
tobacco, 10,339 bags ivory nuts, 1,510 bales rubber, 11,000 bags 
minerals, 5,755 bales cottonseed, 583 bales cotton. In the same 

308 



APPENDIX 

year 986,224 kilos coffee were shipped from Santa Marta, besides 
large quantities of bananas, cacao, cocoanuts, skins. The im- 
ports into the United States from Colombia, in 1906, were 
$7,084,487; the exports to Colombia $3,491,420. 

Steamers entering port of Barrinquilla, 1905, numbered 264, 
of 941,842 tons. Ports of Colombia are in regular communica- 
tion with Europe and America by means of ten lines of mail 
steamers, five of which are British, the others German, French, 
Spanish, Dutch, and Italian. Total length of railways, 1904, 
411 miles; telegraph, 6,470 miles. 

Every able-bodied Colombian is liable to military service; 
regular army consists of about 5,000 men, many of whom are 
engaged in making or repairing highways. The navy consists 
of one small cruiser bought from Morocco in 1902, two gun- 
boats, and two riverboats. 

Ecuador, separated from Colombia in 1830, and has been 
disturbed more or less continually ever since by revolution. 

Area about 120,000 square miles, or about the size of Norway. 
Population, the bulk of which is Indian and mixed blood, is 
about 1,400,000. The Capital, Quito, 80,000; principal sea- 
port and commercial centre, Guayaquil, about 70,000; about 
three hundred foreign vessels, with a tonnage varying from 
360,000 to 370,000, enter and clear here every year. 

The imports vary from $7,000,000 to $7,500,000, and the 
exports from $9,000,000 to $9,300,000. The exports to United 
States in 1906 were $2,632,206; imports from United States to 
Ecuador, $2,009,861. 

One-third of the world's supply of chocolate comes originally 
from Ecuador. From 45,000,000 to 55,000,000 pounds are 
shipped through Guayaquil annually. Coffee, rubber, ivory 
nuts, tobacco, "Panama" hats, and Peruvian bark are also 
exported. Large mineral resources, only slightly developed. 

The roads are mostly bridle paths, and much of the inland 
communication is by river. There is railroad communication 

309 



APPENDIX 

from Guayaquil almost to Quito, and there are other short lines. 
There are 2,564 miles of telegraph and cable communication 
to the rest of the world. 

The army consists of about 5,000 officers and men; the navy 
of two old French despatch vessels, one torpedo boat, and two 
transports. 

Peru, formerly the most important of the Spanish vice- 
royalties, declared independence 1821, and gained freedom, 
1824. Since then the country has suffered from various revo- 
lutions and its power was temporarily crushed in the war with 
Chile, 1879-1884, by which it lost the valuable nitrate provinces. 

Area about 696,000 square miles, or about three and one-half 
times that of France. Population about 3,500,000, of whom 
more than half are Indian. The capital, Lima, about 135,000. 
Principal cities Callao, seaport of Lima, Arequipa, Cuzco, and 
Iquitos ; the latter is near the eastern border and extensive trade 
passes through it on its way to the Amazon. 

Chief agricultural products are coffee, cotton, sugar, chocolate, 
cocoa, and rubber. There are vast deposits of silver and copper; 
and gold, coal, and petroleum are also important. In 1904 there 
were exported 130,000 tons of sugar, 7,413 tons of cotton, 3,550 
tons of wool, 1,031 tons of coffee. The mineral output in 1905 
included $3,220,000 worth of silver, $3,110,000 copper, $625,- 
000 petroleum, $486,000 gold. Rubber valued at $2,142,000 was 
exported mostly through Iquitos. 

The value of exports in 1905 was estimated at 57,516,210 
soles (a sol is worth about 50 cents American). The imports 
were valued at 43,291,510 soles. The order of distribution of 
this trade was : Imports, Great Britain, United States, Germany, 
France, Chile, Bergium, Italy. Exports, Great Britain, Chile, 
United States, Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, Italy. 

The exports to the United States from Peru in 1906 were 
valued at $4,833,307. The imports from the United States, 
$2,454,706. 

310 



APPENDIX 

Vessels entering port of Callao, 1905, 531 of 903,189- tons, 
The total tonnage of all the Peruvian ports, including naviga- 
tion on Lake Titicaca in 1904, was: Entered, 1,947,669 tons; 
cleared, 1,728,400 tons. Mail steamers of Pacific Steam Naviga- 
tion Company and Chilian Company ply between Peru and other 
West Coast ports. Various cargo lines ply between Peru and 
Europe, and there is direct communication between Peru and 
Japan and China. 

By decree of 1898, giving effect to law of December 29, 1897, 
the gold standard was established. The libra is of the same 
standard and weight as the English pound sterling, which is also 
legal tender. Ten soles equal one pound sterling. 

There is a general need of better communication. Total 
length of railroad in 1905 was 1,146 miles; telegraph, 3,000 
miles. There is cable connection with Chile and with the North. 

Army contains 4,000 officers and men, drilled by French 
officers. Navy consists of the cruiser Almirante Grau, 3,200 
tons, 24 knot speed, launched 1906 at Barrow; Lima, a small 
cruiser; the Iquitos and Constitution, transports; the Santa Rosa 
and Chalaco, despatch boats. 

Paraguay. — Originally part of the Viceroyalty of Peru, later 
placed under jurisdiction of Buenos Aires, declared indepen- 
dence of Spain in 1811. After a short government by two 
consuls, the supreme power was seized by various dictators, and 
so held until the great war between Lopez and the combined 
forces of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, 1865-1870. Lopez 
was defeated and killed at Aquidaban, March 1, 1870. The 
country was completely exhausted, and it is only within the past 
few years that it has begun to recover. 

Area, about 98,000 square miles. Population about 650,000, 
including 50,000 Indians. The capital, Asuncion, has about 
62,000 people. Other towns are Villa Rica, 25,000; Concepcion, 
15,000; Carapegua, 13,000. The main industries are cattle- 
raising, the growing of yerba mate", oranges, tobacco, and the 

311 



APPENDIX 

cutting of timber, especially the quebracho Colorado, used for 
railroad ties, and, in the form of extract, for" tanning. Exports, 
in 1905, $5,232,770; imports, $4,678,514. Of the exports, 61 
per cent, go to Argentina, 35 per cent, to Europe, and the re- 
mainder to various South American countries. 

Gold and silver coin were, in 1903, legally fixed as identical 
with those of Argentina. Paper money is the chief circulating 
medium. 

There are about 156 miles of railroad; 1,130 miles of telegraph 
lines. In 1905, 460 steamers, of 109,933 tons, entered the port 
of Asuncion. A French line has established direct communica- 
tion between France and Asuncion, and the Lloyd-Brazilian 
Steamboat Company is to extend its service about 3,000 miles 
up the La Plata River to Matto Grosso. 

The army, maintained chiefly to preserve internal order, 
numbers about 1,000; there are five government steamers serv- 
ing for transport and coast guard. 

Uruguay. — Originally part of a viceroyalty of Spain, sub- 
sequently a province of Brazil, became independent in 1828. 
Frequent revolutions have greatly retarded its progress. 

Area, about 72,210 square miles; population, in 1904, about 
1,039,000. Montevideo, the capital, has about 300,000 people; 
a university with faculties of law, medicine and mathematics, 
a state school of arts and trades, military college, normal schools, 
and various establishments for secondary education; there is a 
national library and museum, a charity hospital and various 
asylums; there are 126 periodicals published in the republic. 
The main industries are cattle and sheep-raising and the growing 
of grain. Wine, tobacco and, in the north, minerals, are also 
important. In 1902 it was estimated that there were in the 
country 18,000,000 sheep, 7,000,000 cattle, 659,000 horses, 
21,000 mules, 9,000 goats, 52,000 pigs. 

The exports, in 1905, were valued at about $31,000,000. 
The imports at almost the same figure. Of the exports, nearly 

312 



APPENDIX 

$28,000,000 worth were in the form of preserved beef and hides 
and other animal products. In 1905, Uruguay exported to the 
United States $2,711,897 worth of goods and received from the 
United States $2,905,573 worth. The imports into the United 
States are chiefly hides and skins. 

Vessels entering the port of Montevideo, in 1905, 4,837, of 
6,850,617 tons net. In that year, twenty-eight steamers, of total net 
tonnage of 13,220, and seventy-two sailing vessels, of total net ton- 
nage of 31,062, flew the flag of Uruguay. Montevideo is visited 
by steamers of twenty different companies, of which twelve are 
British, three French, two German, two Italian, and one Spanish. 

Inland communication leaves much to be desired; there are 
1,210 miles of railroad and 4,916 miles of telegraph line; 11,414 
miles of telephone wires. 

There is no Uruguayan gold coin in circulation, but the 
monetary standard is gold, the theoretical gold coin being the 
peso nacional, weighing 1.697 grammes .917 fine. 

The permanent army numbered in 1905 about 5,800 officers 
and men. There is also an armed police force of 3,830 men. 
The navy consists of two small gun-boats and two transports. 

Venezuela. — Discovered by Columbus on his third voyage, 
1498. It was in Caracas, the capital, that the revolutionary 
movement, which freed the whole northern part of South America 
from Spain, began, in 1810. General Miranda had led an un- 
successful revolt in 1806. On July 5, 1811, independence was 
proclaimed, and for ten years afterward there was almost con- 
tinuous warfare. The important battles of Carabobo, in 1821, 
of Pichincha, in 1822, and Junin and Ayacucho, in 1824, finally 
destroyed the Spanish power. The Republic of Venezuela was 
formed in 1830 by secession from the other members of the 
Republic of Colombia. Since 1830, no fewer than fifty-one 
revolutionary movements have swept the country, eleven of 
which overturned the government of the day. 

Area, about 364,000 square miles, with a population, in 1905, 

313 



APPENDIX 

of 2,602,492. Caracas, the capital, has about 75,000 people, and 
among the other cities are, Valencia, 38,654; Maracaibo, 34,284; 
Barquisimeto, 31,476; Barcelona, 12,785; Ciudad Bolivar, 
11,686. The area of Venezuela equals more than the combined 
area of Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, 
Louisiana, Oklahoma and Arkansas. 

Venezuela is divided into three zones — the agricultural, near 
the Caribbean, which produces sugar-cane, coffee, cocoa, cereals, 
etc.; the llanos, or cattle country, in the interior along the 
Orinoco, and the forest country, which produces rubber, timber, 
tonga beans, etc. Valuable deposits of minerals, asphalt, petro- 
leum, in common with other resources, are as yet only slightly 
developed. 

Value of exports, 1905, about $14,500,000; value of imports, 
about $10,000,000; the exports, in the order of their value, were: 
Coffee, chocolate, rubber, cattle, hides and skins, gold, asphalt, 
pearls. The distribution of export trade, in the order of im- 
portance, was: United States, France, Holland and Colonies, 
Great Britain and Colonies, Cuba, Germany and Spain. 

The exports to the United States from Venezuela, in 1906, 
were valued at $8,034,701; imported from United States, 
$3,258,133. 

Vessels entering ports of Venezuela in 1905, were: At Puerto 
Cabello, 330; La Guayra, 282; Ciudad Bolivar, 54. The 
Venezuelan ports are visited regularly by mail steamers of 
American, British, Dutch, French, German, Italian and Spanish 
steamship companies. In 1905, twelve steamers and eighteen 
sailing vessels flew the Venezuelan flag. 

There are twelve lines of railway, of a total length of about 
540 miles; there are about 11,160 miles of navigable water on 
the Orinoco and its tributaries; there are 4,160 miles of telegraph 
line. Communication in the interior is primitive and mostly 
carried on by pack mules. 

The active army consists of about 9,000 men; the navy con- 
sists of two small gun-boats and two small transports. 

314 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Aconcagua, Mount, mentioned. 184, Ballon, E. Zegarra, mentioned, 107: 



193. 

Akers, Mr., his history of South Amer- 
ica, mentioned, 186. 
. America, North, people compared with 
the people of South America, 4. 

America, South, two ways of seeing the 
country of, 34-. appendix, 301 
and 302. 

Americans, The Other, our usual atti- 
tude toward and idea of, 2 and 3. 

Andes, the climate of the western slope 
of, 50-52; the heights of, men- 
tioned, 184. 

Antofagasta, harbor of, mentioned, 
137. 

Aranha, Senhor Graea, author of 
"Chanaan," 276; reading of his 
novel by, 277-280. 

Arequipa, town of, 107: Harvard ob- 
servatory at, 108 and 109; influ- 
ence of the church at, 110 and 111. 

Argentine Republic, use of name Re- 
public, 1; the American idea of, 
2; exports of, 211 and 212; pop- 
ulation and foreign residents of, 
241-243; appendix, 302 and 303. 

Arica, battle of, mentioned, 71. 

Atahualpa, mentioned, 51. 

Avenida Alvear, the, at afternoon in, 
218-221. 

Avenida Sarmiento, the, a street in 
Buenos Aires, mentioned, 218. 

Bahia, color of the population of, 4; 
mentioned, 290. 



poem to, 108. 

Balmaceda, President, his death, 155. 

Baltimore, the U. S. S., fight with 
Chilian soldiers, 139. 

Barrio de La Vina, mentioned, 85. 

Bartolomeo, San, mentioned, 61. 

Blanco Encalada, the Chilian battle- 
ship, 140. 

Boca, La, the dock at, 32. 

Bogota, "the Boston of South Amer- 
ica," 35; poetry written at, 36. 

Bolivar, Gen., the South American 
Liberator, mentioned, 5; his de- 
feat of the Spaniards, 68. 

Bolivar, the Plaza de, mentioned, 16. 

Bolivia, mentioned, 4; country of, 
climate, 101-105; difficulty of 
travelling to, 104 and 105; needs 
of the country, 116 and 117; ap- 
pendix, 303 and 304. 

Bolognesi, Colonel Francisco, mon- 
ument to and account of his 
death, 71 and 72; statue of, 
mentioned, 76. 

"Bolsa, La," a newspaper of Arequipa, 
107. 

Bomfim, Senhor, quotations from his 
book, 292 and 293; quoted, 294 
and 295. 

Brazil, impressions on entering the 
country, 258 and 259; emancipa- 
tion of the slaves of, 273; foreign 
population of, 286 and 287; ap- 
pendix, 304-306. 

Bricabraquena, mentioned, 85. 



317 



INDEX 



Buenos Aires, town of, mentioned, 1; 
compared with Paris, 207 and 
208; commerce of, 212 and 213; 
compared with other South Amer- 
ican cities, 214 and 215; a French- 
man's impression of, 216; litera- 
ture of, 224 and 225; contrast of 
its welcome to Secretary Root 
with that of Montevideo's, 232; 
newspapers of, 245-247; life in, 
251-253. 

Callao, town of, mentioned, 52-56; 
situation, 57; harbor of, men- 
tioned, 52. 

Canto, Don Guillermo del, mentioned, 
164. 

Caracas, town of, 9: called the Paris 
of South America, 15; lottery at, 
19-21; inhabitants and climate 
of, 13-28. 

Carrefio, Madame, mentioned, 26. 

Carocoles, town of, mentioned, 189. 

Carvallo, mentioned, 25. 

Castro, President, mentioned, 25. 

Chacabuco, the Chilian battleship, 140. 

"Chacabuco," play of, 225-227. 

"Chanaan," quotation from, 283-285; 
mentioned, 276. 

Chile, attitude toward the Ameri- 
cans, 3; war with Peru, 73-76; 
country of, 145 and 146; Chilian 
justice, 146 and 147; the horse- 
men of, 165; appendix, 306-308. 

"Chileno, El," a Chilian newspaper, 
mentioned, 157. 

Choisica, author's journey through, 61. 

Christie, officer in the Chilian navy, 
140. 

Colombia, appendix, 308 and 309. 

Colon, town of, 38. 

"Combate, El," newspaper, letter to, 
23 and 24. 

Compafia, La, mentioned, 22. 

Condell, Almirante, Chilian battleship, 
mentioned, 140. 



Corcovado, rock of, mentioned, 263. 
Cordillera, buried valley of, 69. 
Corpus Christi, church fiesta of, 87-89. 
Cox, officer in Chilian navy, men- 
tioned, 140. 
Culebra Cut, the, mentioned, 46. 
Culvas, las, mentioned, 206. 

Del Solar, Alberto, author of 
"Chacabuco," 225. 

"Dia, El," a newspaper of Buenos 
Aires, Secretary Root's speech re- 
ported in, 231. 

"Diario El," newspaper of Santiago, 
its attitude during Secretary 
Root's visit, 247 and 248. 

"Diario Ilustrado, El," newspaper of 
Santiago, 157. 

"Diario Popular, El," newspaper of 
Santiago, 157. 

Diarios, dos, Club, ball at, 274 and 275. 

Ecuador, appendix, 309 and 310. 
Eden Club, the, 99 and 100. 
Edwards, officer in Chilian navy, 

mentioned, 140. 
Esmeralda, The, Chilian battleship, 

141. 

" Ferrocarril, El," newspaper of 
Santiago, mentioned, 157. 

Florida Street, a street in Buenos 
Aires, mentioned, 222. 

Frio, Cap, German steamer, men- 
tioned, 212. 

Galera, Pass of, mentioned, 52. 

" Germany, the Little," 286 and 287. 

Gorgas, Colonel, mentioned, 37. 

Grau, statue of, 72. 

Gran canciller americano, El, a South 

American biography of Secretary 

Root, 232. 
"Grito del Pueblo, El," mentioned, 50. 
Guayaquil, walls of, mentioned, 50; 

chocolate supply of, 50. 



318 



INDEX 



Guayra, La, port of, mentioned, 27- 
37. 

Hipodromo de Santa Beatriz, Jockey 
Club Races and Bull Fight at, 89 
and 90. 

Huerfanos, corner of, mentioned, 153. 

"Imparcial, El," newspaper, men- 
tioned, 157. 

Incas, the civilization of, 5; fields of, 
65 and 66. 

India, La, mentioned, 27. 

Ingles 6 norte-americano, 1. 

"Instituto Ingles," the, 173 and 174. 

Iquitos, town of, mentioned, 58. 

Jockey Club, the, party at, 165-168. 
" Jornal do Brazil," the, 267. 
Joven Victoria, La, 54. 
Juncal, the, mentioned, 187. 
Junin pampa, the, mentioned, 68. 
"Juventud Conservadora," newspa- 
per of Santiago, 158. 

La Paz, town of, and inhabitants, 114- 
116; the story of the British Pre- 
mier at, 115 and 116. 

"Lei, La," newspaper of Santiago, 
mentioned, 157. 

Leighton, officer in Chilian navy, 
mentioned, 140. 

Lima, railroad at, 58; founding of, by 
Pizarro, mentioned, 77; town of, 
and library, 77 and 78 ; the people 
and society of, 92-94; convent, 
95 and 96; Sunday dinner at, 97 
and 98. 

Llama, the, mentioned, 66 and 67. 

Lopez, Dictator, mentioned, 213. 

Loreto, department of, mentioned, 57. 

Lynch, Almirante, Chilian battleship, 
mentioned, 140. 



Macpherson, officer in the Chilian 
navy, mentioned, 140. 



Magellan, the, steamer, mentioned, 254. 

Maracaibo, town of, mentioned, 40. 

Marche du Temple, the, 85. 

Matucana, town of, 62; fete day at, 
62 and 63. 

Meiggs, Henry, his work in South 
America, 59; switching device of, 
61 and 62. 

Meiggs, mount, 68. 

Mendozians, the, conversations be- 
tween, 200-204. 

Mercurio, the, mentioned, 139. 

" Mercurio, El," newspaper of Santiago, 
mentioned, 157; most widely 
read, 161 and 162; mentioned, 
163 and 164. 

Michaelena, mentioned, 26. 

Mollendo, inhabitants of, 72. 

Montes, President Ismael, mentioned, 
131 and 132; his review of the 
troops at Oruro, 133. 

Nabuco, Senhor Joachim, mentioned, 

269. 
Nacion, La, story in, 249-251. 

O'Higgins, General, mentioned, 139. 

O'Higgins, El Almirante, Chilian bat- 
tleship, mentioned, 139. 

Orinoco River, mentioned, 10. 

Oroya road, the, highest road in 
the world; the railroad, men- 
tioned, 183. 

Ortegal, Cap, German boat, 212. 

Oruro, beginning of railroad to con- 
nect Peru and Argentine at, 58; 
journalism at, 127-129; 4th of 
July celebration at, 127-133. 

Pacasmayo, town of, mentioned, 52. 

Paita, town of, mentioned, 52 and 53. 

Pan-American railroad, the, men- 
tioned, 58. 

Panama, the canal, people there and 
climate, 44-46; negroes, 42-44. 

Paraguay, appendix, 311 and 312. 



319 



INDEX 



Paraiso, the, mentioned, 15 and 16. 

Pararaillo de Las Vacas, the, 193. 

"Patria, La," newspaper of Santiago, 
mentioned, 157. 

Pedro, Dom, mentioned, 268. 

Pepper, Chas., mentioned, 159. 

Peru, appendix, 310 and 311. 

Petropolis, description of, 282 and 
283. 

" Prensa, La," a paper of Lima, men- 
tioned, 107; 185 and 186; an ac- 
count of Chacabuco in, 226, 246 
and 247. 

Quebrada Negra, the, mentioned, 

64. 
Quito, ancient, mentioned, 51. 

Razon, La, mentioned, 235. 

"Reforma, La," newspaper of Santi- 
ago, mentioned, 157. 

Rimac Valley, the, mentioned, 60. 

Rio, description of, 256-258; popula- 
tion of, 274-276; national insti- 
tute at, 269; Conference, the, men- 
tioned, 26. 

Rogers, officer in Chilian navy, men- 
tioned, 140. 

Rojas, mentioned, 26. 

Romero, Senhor Sylvio, a book by, 
291. 

Root, the Hon. Elihu, mentioned, 227; 
preparations made for his coming 
to Santiago, 227-229 ; his visit to 
Montevideo, 229-231; burlesque 
accounts of his reception in 
Buenos Aires, 234 and 235; his 
reception at Buenos Aires, 235 
and 236 ; at Buenos Aires, and his 
welcome, 237-240. 

Rosa Maria, La, mentioned, 54. 

Roto, the, his work in the country, 
147-149. 

Salaverry, town of, mentioned, 52. 
"Sanchez Osorio," mentioned, 72. 



San Martin, General, mentioned, 5; 
mentioned, 190; mentioned in 
"Chacabuco," 225; the theatre 
in Buenos Aires, 223. 

Santa Lucia, mentioned, 154. 

Santiago, city of, and inhabitants of, 
154-156; its citizens, 156; news- 
papers of, 156-158; theatre at, 
169 and 170; school at, 171, 175. 

Sao Paulo, town of, mentioned, 210; 
inhabitants and plantations of, 
261 and 262. 

Simpson, Almirante, Chilian battle- 
ship, mentioned, 140. 

Smith, officer in the Chilian navy, 
mentioned, 140. 

Sorata, the, ship belonging to Pacific 
Steam Navigation Co., 159. 

"Southern Cross," the, South Ameri- 
can school paper, 173 and 174. 

" Sporting Boy," — Sporting editor " El 
Mercurio;" letter to, 164 and 165. 

Stegomyas, mentioned, 37, 39. 

Stephens, officer in the Chilian navy, 
mentioned, 140. 

Thomson, officer in the Chilian navy, 

mentioned, 140. 
Titicaca, river of, 106. 
Titicaca, Lake, country around, 112 

and 113. 
Tres Hermanos, Los, 54. 
"Tribuno, El," article appearing in, 

119 and 120. 
Tumbez, town of, mentioned, 51. 

Ugarte, Lieutenant, his death at the 

battle of Arica, 72. 
"Ultimas Noticias, Las," newspaper, 

mentioned, 157. ■ 
Uruguay, appendix, 312 and 313. 

Valparaiso, city of, 134 and 135; 
nitrate oficinas output, 135-137; 
inhabitants of, 138; foreign colo- 
nies at, 139; fire department of, 



320 



INDEX 

Valparaiso— Continued. Wart Water Bridge, the, mentioned, 

141 and 142; naval school at, 62. 

140 and 141. Wheelwright, William, statue of, 140. 

Venezuela, coast of, 12; the charac- Wilson, officer in Chilian navy, men- 

teristic traits of, 17 and 18; ap- tioned, 140. 

pendix, 313 and 314. Wood, officer in Chilian navy, men- 
tioned, 140. 
Walker, officer in the Chilian navy, 

mentioned, 140. "Zigzag," the, comic illustrated pa- 
Warner, officer in Chilian navy, men- per, 163. 

tioned, 140. 



321 



N'24 



— AS 



